


west of the moon

by keishn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drama & Romance, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Magic, Near Death Experiences, Royalty, Trolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-02-10 07:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12906951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keishn/pseuds/keishn
Summary: "I have to go," Iwa-chan says and he sounds so calm, despite the anger in his eyes only moments ago. "She's going to take me away now."A retelling of the fairytale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon."





	1. the bear

Tooru is twelve-and-a-half, walking along the riverbank behind the farmhouse. It's winter, so the river itself is iced over and the otherwise muddy riverbank is covered in clean, white snow. When the snow falls it turns the farm into a magical place. He loves that. There's a fallen log, covered in a couple inches of snow that crunch underneath his feet. He holds his arms out in a horizontal line to help him keep his balance, whistling the tune of a song he heard some children singing in the neighboring village last fall when his father had taken him to sell the crops. "It's time you start learning to be the man of the house, Tooru," he had said.

The farmhouse is out of sight, and even the barn is beginning to shrink behind him.Tooru keeps walking.Being outside alone is not unusual for him. He's outgrown the age at which his older sister was forced to spend every waking second with him, and no other children live this far away from the town.He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that as a child he did have a friend. He doesn't remember anything about them, as if the memories have been stolen from him, but the phantom friend still makes their home somewhere in the back of Tooru's mind.

At the end of the riverbank, there sits an abandoned farm. Tooru knows it wasn't always abandoned, but he doesn't know what it is that keeps drawing him back to it besides his parents telling him to stay away. For the last two years, Tooru has watched as harsh winters have transformed the once welcoming land into a place of wraiths and ghouls. He hasn't ever _seen_ a wraith or a ghoul, but he's sure if he were to find one it would be at this very place after the sun sets.

Now, Tooru is nearly thirteen, nearly a man.Getting a little closer to the place isn't out of the question, his parents' warnings were for a child. He trudges through the knee-deep snow to the small farmhouse. The roof has caved in, he notices from a distance. As he gets closer he realizes the door is missing from its hinges.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself and clenching his fists beside him, he walks up and peers through the doorframe.

It's empty. There's nothing but pieces of the roof, inches of snow on the ground, and settled dust.It is devoid of any evidence that anyone had ever lived there.

The feeling of dread creeps on him the longer he stands at the edge of the abandoned place. Something bad happened here, Tooru realizes, stopping himself from stepping over the threshold.Something _really, really bad_ happened here.His heart begins to race and the hair on the back of his neck stands and goosebumps form on his arms. He doesn't hear anything out of place. The sole sound is of the wind as it swoops in through the collapsed roof and rushes past him through the door. Still, there's something causing his heart to slam into his ribcage and he takes a few clumsy steps backward, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste. He turns and runs back towards the river, hurrying back towards his family's farm.

But his heart continues to race, and that dread — it doesn't leave him.

Tooru looks around frantically for an escape, and his eyes lock on a path leading up the other side of the riverbankHe needs to escape. He needs to escape now. He sucks in a breath and holds it in his lungs as he takes a step onto the ice, vision starting to blur. Nothing happens, so he takes another step forward. Then he begins to run.

He hears the crack before he feels himself fall. He's surrounded by nothing but cold, seeping into his bones, into his soul. He tries to swim upwards but his hands hit the ice. He opens his eyes under the water, and they sting and his lungs are burning and he can't see anything but the color white.

He's going to die.

*

Tooru's eyes open, slowly, adjusting to the mid-afternoon daylight seeping in through the wooden boards that make up the walls.He looks around and the scenery (and smell) confirms that he is waking up in the corner of the family barn. He is, in fact, sleeping in a stall meant for a horse except that there isn't a horse in here with him; there's a bear. The bear has black, black fur and isn't as small as a cub but is certainly not grown to its full size. Tooru gulps, entire body tensing. The first thing he wonders is whether the bear is hibernating, but as he shifts he notices the animal open its eyes, so _no_ the bear is not hibernating and Tooru is probably about to die.

"Uh—" he starts, "please don't eat me?"

He blames the bear's mossy green eyes and the curious look it was giving him just moments ago for his thought to speak to it.

The bear lets a breath out through his nose that sounds almost like a scoff followed by: "Why would I do that when I saved your life? Dummy."

Tooru startles. Tooru nearly screams, but he's twelve-and-a-half and nearly a man, now, and men don't scream so he swallows the sound before it escapes his throat.

The bear stares at Tooru. He stares back.

His thoughts are running too quickly. He wonders briefly if this makes him friends with the talking bear, now.  He opens his mouth to ask if they're friends, but before he can figure out the words to use to ask a talking bear to be his friend, the bear is gone.

*

Upon returning to the farmhouse, Tooru's mother catches him in an embrace, gripping him as if he had been away for a lifetime. When she lets him go after what feels like two or three eternities his older sister is on him immediately. His father makes no large displays of affection but he does ruffle Tooru's soft, chocolate hair with one hand and say, "Glad you came back to us."

"How long was I gone?" Tooru asks, his brow knitting into itself.

His parents exchange a glance and his sister says, "Two nights."She pauses, and when he doesn't say anything she keeps going. "We went looking for you but we didn't find anything except— except…" She trails off and looks at their mother and father. Tooru's eyes follow hers and he notices his mother is almost in tears.His father's Adam's apple bobs downward and then back up as he swallows, arm around his wife.His sister looks back at him. She exhales and hugs him again, saying, "It looked like someone tried to cross the river — the ice — but it cracked.We thought you drowned."

She finally lets Tooru go and guilt seizes his insides.

"I—" He tries to start but has to stop to take a shaky inhale. "I _did_ fall in the river." He pauses and avoids looking at any of his family members in the eye, instead looking at his own hands."I was so scared, I thought — I couldn't see _anything_ and my hands hit the ice when I tried to surface — I thought I was going to die but…." He trails off, eventually works up the ability to look at his father. "I woke up. In our barn. There was a bear there, and he could _talk_ , and had green eyes and— and he told me he saved my life."

Tooru's parents give him worried looks. They must think he's fallen ill after his tumble into the ice, but he knows that what he saw this afternoon was no hallucination —  _or was it?_ the back of his mind asks, but he refuses to believe that voice — he knows he was saved from certain death. He knows that it was a bear with eyes the color of spring that saved him. But, even his sister is giving him a weird look now and he doesn't want to get in trouble so he snaps his mouth shut.

*

The next few years of Tooru's life are filled with nothing but bad luck, despite his resolution to stay away from the abandoned farm up the river.  When he's thirteen his sister gets married and moves out of the farm; she has a son soon after. When he is fifteen their crops don't grow, the summer too arid and the winter too harsh. The same thing happens at sixteen. At seventeen, his sister's husband falls ill and can no longer work in town, so the family of three moves into the farm. It's another dry summer, another ground-freezing winter.

Even with the bad luck, his life is far more uneventful than the time he nearly drowned.He meets no more bears with black fur and green eyes that can speak. He never brings the bear up again, but he continues to refuse to believe that it was only a product of his imagination.

The summer of his eighteenth birthday is the worst.

"We can't go on like this," his father says one day.

The two of them are standing by the river, Tooru's father stopping a few paces behind him.Once rushing, wide, and deep, the body of water is now barely a small stream. Tooru glances down at the water they've used to survive for so long; the water that nearly took his life. It breaks his heart, seeing it like this.Tooru wants to blame himself for it, despite the fact that such placement of blame is ridiculous. Mother nature has never been on their side, not really, but she's been particularly hard on them recently.

"I can go into town," Tooru says, thinking of his family, "find work. I'll— I'll become a blacksmith's apprentice, or—" His father raises an amused eyebrow at _that_ suggestion as if picturing Tooru in a blacksmith's apron sitting at a grindstone is a ridiculous image. "or I'll work for the apothecary, or at the inn, or the brewery—"

"You're too old to start an apprenticeship, Tooru," his father interrupts, "and besides, even if you were able to make the money to help us survive, it won't save the farm."

Tooru wants to scream _Who cares about the farm?_ but he holds his tongue.His father seems to read his mind anyway, because the man says, "I know. I know you've hated this your whole life."

"I've never—"

"Don't lie to me. I'm your father, I know you too well."His father is silent for a moment and Tooru keeps his voice to himself.They stand for a few minutes, watching the small stream of water flow past them. After a moment, his father takes a few steps forward, standing at Tooru's side now."If I wasn't there the night you were born, I'd think maybe there was some mistake. Sometimes I still think you can't be _ours_. I don't know what it is, Tooru, but I think I've always known that I'd have to give you up; that you were meant for more than all of this."

"I've never complained about the farm," Tooru says.His words are true. He's never been ungrateful for the life he's been dealt, but his father just smiles softly at him.  He knows that his father recognizes the look that he gets when he's lost in thought or when he's thinking about another life — one that didn't depend on how dry of a summer they had — a life where luck was not enough to make or break existence itself.

His father walks away, hands in the pockets of trousers worn out at the knees from kneeling against the earth.Tooru looks at his own palms, skin packed with dirt, and it doesn't seem to matter what type of life he _could_ have had. In this moment he recognizes who he is. In this moment he recognizes that he is of the soil. He is a farmer's son and one day he will be a farmer, too, and he can only hope that those who control the skies are kinder when he's in charge.He leans forward, letting water from the stream run through his long fingers. He recognizes how thin his hands have become. They've been struggling for so long, and it's only exacerbated now, with his sister and brother-in-law and nephew living with them.

Tooru's mind wanders, as it often does, to his childhood. He thinks about it from time to time, still. Some nights, haunted by nightmares of what transpired the day that the ice cracked beneath his feet, he slips out of the farmhouse to look up at the skies and wonder if anyone is looking back. The stars are so bright, so brilliant in the dark sky, that he wonders if they aren't a collection of lost souls waiting to drop back down to earth.

He sighs, pulling his hand back from the stream. His father has walked away in the time he spent lost in his own thoughts, he tries to avoid being alone by the river — if it can still be called as much — as much as possible.He turns and heads back up to the farmhouse.

 

*

Winter comes. There is not enough food to feed everyone.Even though his parents and sister won't say it — and Tooru certainly isn't going to put that into words — he knows they're all thinking it.There's not enough food to feed everyone. There's not enough food and not enough firewood.

In December, they have to kill one of the mares. She's pregnant, but if they don't show her mercy, she'll just starve anyway.  As he follows his father out to the barn, his sister tries to shush her son.When his father, with one clean sweep of a blade, takes her life, he silently sends her off. Another lost soul sent to the stars. He hopes it's warmer for her there than it was here against the dirt of the Oikawa farm.

The next few days and nights bring snow. Tooru keeps the fire running. One night, he reaches for a log to put on the fire and recognizes how small the pile of wood has become. He glances at his parents, who aren't paying attention to him. They're speaking to one another in hushed tones, leaning in close enough that they can speak without Tooru hearing any of their conversation. He looks back into the wood stove and lets out a pained sigh. They'll be lucky to see spring.

A loud gust of wind howls through the night, as an abrupt sound comes from the door.Tooru looks to his parents and exchanges a look with his father. He hears the creak of the bedframe as his sister stiffens, and he doesn't have to look to know her spine is straightened and all of her attention has turned to the door. Everything is still for what feels like a million years but is probably only seconds. Then his father moves. He opens the door.

" _I've come for Oikawa Tooru._ "

A deep voice with a gruff edge speaks, and Tooru's father moves as if to block the view of his son from the doorway.Tooru's thoughts come to a halt. Everything in the room becomes a distant swirling mess and his senses seem to fail him as he hears that voice — _that voice_ — ringing in his ears. He is distantly aware of his mother's gasp and of his father's exchanged words with the creature that's come to take him.

Tooru knows, even before he gets a good look, that his father is talking to a bear with black fur and green eyes. Even if the nighttime shadows were not obscuring his sight, though, he isn't sure he'd be able to process it. Still, when there's movement against the snow on the ground outside, and a form of something large lifts its head Tooru's eyes lock onto eyes he hasn't seen for six winters his heart races, his breath hitches. Before he can process what he's asking, the question hangs in the air.

"What will happen?"His own voice echoes in the small house.

His vision clears, the room stills again. The bear tells Tooru that spring will come early, the ground will thaw quickly, there will be rain enough to replenish the river.His family will be healthy, the farm will grow more crops than ever before, they'll sell more in town, his father will become as rich as he is poor.

"What about me?" Tooru asks, bracing himself. "What will happen to me?"

The bear does not make promises this time, does not say anything. There is a look in those green eyes that Tooru wishes he could decipher, wishes he could translate into his own language. Time stops as they look at each other and Tooru knows that even if he can't tell what the bear is thinking, he trusts him. Even if he didn't, he owes this bear his life. Finally, Tooru's own voice pierces through the silence in the farmhouse.

"I'll go," he says.

He hears his mother begin to sob, face buried in the faded blue fabric of the sleeves of her dress. He feels his sister's arms around his neck, pulling him in tightly." _Don't go_ ," she pleads in a whisper, but he's already made up his mind, already given his word.Once she lets go, his father clasps Tooru's shoulder with one hand — the simple touch between father and son that says everything that words cannot. The old farmer gives his son a nod, and his son nods in return.Air catches in his lungs, surprised when the older man pulls him into an embrace that's far too gentle for the pair.

"Come back to us, Tooru," he says when he pulls away a moment later.

He doesn't promise.

*

They've been walking steadily since the sun rose after Tooru gathered his things and slept fitfully through the night.The bear can easily maneuver his way through the deep snow, but for Tooru it's a slower process, and too often his legs sink knee-deep or further into the white chill. Most of his body is too numb for him to notice how cold he really is, at this point. He thinks his nose probably has frostbite.

They've mostly walked in silence, Tooru working up the courage to say something for the past hours.

"Am I allowed to ask where you're taking me?"

The bear doesn't respond. Tooru huffs and thinks, ' _What a waste_ ,'because what type of bear that can talk doesn't want to?Tooru still isn't entirely sure what he's agreed to, besides to follow this bear. He wonders how far they're traveling. He imagines reaching the edge of the world, the expanse of nothingness in front of him, and the bear telling him to jump— or just nudging him off. All that Tooru can come up with is that he's heading towards certain death He _must_ be. It couldn't be anything else that made the bear he owes his life to show up at the door of the farmhouse.

He starts to attempt to make peace with the fact that he will likely be dead before the sun sets.

"Stop that," the bear says, next to him.

Tooru is startled from his thoughts."Stop what?"

"Making that face," the bear says.

"What face?"

"A face like you think I'm going to try to eat you."

Momentarily, he wonders whether he's being teased.

The bear lets air out through his leathery nose. "I told you before," the bear says, "I have no interest in eating you. Or anyone, for that matter."

Tooru's eyes beam, he lets out a gasp and exclaims, "It _is_ you!" Not that there was ever a doubt in his mind.The verbal confirmation — even in the form of being teased — is somehow comforting.It feels natural and Tooru realizes how ridiculous that feeling is because nothing about this situation should feel normal to him: he's walking through the snow with a talking bear at his side after having been taken from his farmhouse in the middle of the night, like some maiden in a folktale.

Green eyes glance at him before he hears: "Do you know a lot of other talking bears?"

He's being teased again, and this time Tooru simply narrows his eyes and attempts to stare down his nose at the bear, which is a difficult feat when the animal is so much larger than he.

Their silence resumes for a while, and Tooru's exhaustion is proving to be a hindrance on their trip to wherever it is he's being taken.He makes a point to yawn dramatically enough that the bear notices, and when the animal _does_ notice Tooru thinks he sees the bear roll his eyes. He didn't know bears were capable of that expression, but he doesn't dwell on that fact and thinks ' _Rude_.'Finally, he admits defeat because the bear doesn't seem to be willing to give in so easily.

"You know," he says, "we could move a lot faster if you let me hop on your back."

The bear snorts. "What? So _I_ can do all the work?"

It sounds like a protest, but the animal shifts his weight anyway and lets Tooru clamber onto him.

"See?" Tooru says, perched on the back of the animal's wide shoulders, fingers twisting into black fur — soft fur, softer than Tooru expected —, legs draped around the bear's back, "That wasn't so hard."

*

They travel for days.When the sun is up, Tooru sits on the bear's shoulders as they travel. At night, he sleeps curled against the large animal for warmth.The third day is particularly windy, and it burns Tooru's face to the point that he ends up leaning his torso forward, face burrowing into the bear's neck. He had brought his warmest clothes including his thickest coat, but even that had quickly proven to not be enough. The cold is so settled into his bones that he begins to wonder whether his body will even make it to their destination. Perhaps the bear doesn't need to worry about how he's planning on ending Tooru, nature seems to be taking care of that for him.

That night, once they settle down and wind stops with them, he presses closer to the animal than usual, using the bear's side as his pillow, and turns his face towards the sky. He traces the constellations with his fingers— the ones that are the trapped souls of warriors, queens, villians— and tells the bear the stories his mother taught him as a child.He pauses on one constellation, that of a mother bear and her cub. His hand falls, his voice cuts short, it's a sad story and he's not entirely sure it's something another bear wants to hear.  He's surprised the animal has let him talk, watching him with those green eyes, following his stories, for this long. Most of the last days once he begins to talk for too long when they're walking, he's promptly told to shut up.

But the wind had kept him quiet for most of the daytime, today.  Maybe the bear doesn't mind his talking as much as he claims.

"Do you have a name?" He finally asks, rolling his head to the side, looking the bear in the face.

"What?" The bear splutters, surprised, apparently, by Tooru's question. "Of _course_ I have a name."

The tone of his voice tells Tooru that he thinks the farm boy to be an idiot. Tooru's used to that assumption, but it doesn't mean he likes it. In fact, it's completely inaccurate. His mother, once the daughter of a noblewoman who had left her family for love (a nice story, but definitely not one that helped Tooru's daydreaming of a nicer life) taught him to read. He's _not_ a simpleton, even if the dirt underneath his fingernails makes people believe otherwise.

He turns his head away from the gaze of those very _human_ eyes.

"What is it?" the bear asks.

"You think I'm stupid."

"I didn't say that," the bear says.

"You thought it, though," Tooru says, still stubbornly looking away.He doesn't know why it bothers him so much. It really, really shouldn't.

"No," the bear says, voice somehow both firm and soft at the same time, "I didn't."

It's silent for a few moments as they lay there, Tooru stubbornly refusing to look at the animal. He _willingly accepted_ to follow the bear, he remembers, to do whatever was asked of him, without knowing anything about what he'd actually be asked to do once they arrived at their destination.Only now, three nights into their journey, four nights since his agreement to the proposition, has he learned that the bear has a name.

"What is it?" Tooru asks, still looking away, "Your name, I mean."

The bear breathes out and it hits the back of Tooru's neck warm compared to the deep chill of the night. How Tooru's body has remained alive after spending so many nights vulnerable to the outdoors is a mystery.

"Iwaizumi Hajime," the bear says.

 _That's a pretty name_ , he thinks as a memory begins to stir in the back of his mind. He stills, waiting, but as soon as the sensation is there it's gone leaving him nauseous and feeling like he'd just woken up from a dream. Tooru wonders if his own mind is beginning to play tricks on him.He doesn't dwell on his physiological reaction to the name for too long, he can't afford to, but it still leaves him in an uncomfortable headspace.

He lets out a _hmm_ , trying to keep his expression neutral as he turns back, finally. 

"I'm going to call you Iwa-chan," he says, and it hits him again with much more force. 

Tooru doesn't know what's happening to him, and he doesn't like it.His mind is fighting against itself, his conscious against his subconscious, and it leaves him dizzy. He's glad that they've stopped for the night, that he doesn't have to try to keep his balance as Iwa-chan walks through the snow.His thoughts are so preoccupied that he fails to register the bear's voice, doesn't notice the widened eyes, the sharp intake of breath.

"Where are we going?" He asks, minutes later when the feeling of nausea and dizziness begins to subside.

"To where I live," Iwa-chan replies without hesitation.

Tooru wrinkles his nose, shooting the bear a pointed look. Bears live in caves."You're not going to hold me hostage and make me sleep on a pile of grass and call it a bed, are you?"

"If you don't shut up, I might," is the reply.

Tooru rolls so that his face is buried in soft fur, and wraps an arm underneath the animal's neck."Good night, Iwa-chan," he mumbles, his words lost against the animal. He feels the bear's chest shift underneath him as he drifts off to sleep.

*

"We're here."

The bear stops in its tracks and Tooru is positive that he's heard incorrectly. They've been traveling for so long that the thought of _not_ traveling feels like a dream. Still, when the bear shifts, Tooru slides off his back and plants his feet against the snow, subsequently sinking knee-deep into it.

"Where?" Tooru asks stupid, rubbing his eyes and blinking once, twice.

"I told you," Iwa-chan tells him, "where I live."

 _'That can't be right,'_ Tooru thinks.He takes in the sight of sprawling hills covered in snow. There's a large elaborate structure directly in from of him, with windows taller than Tooru's home and high, high white marble walls. There are wide stone stairs leading up to the main door. A walkway of perfectly cut and immaculately clean stone masonry is devoid of any snow, lined with evergreen shrubs trimmed to perfection, not even sinking underneath the inches of snow sitting atop their branches.In all his life, Tooru has never seen a place so lavish, so expansive. Not even the home of the nobleman who lived on the outskirts of the neighboring village — a home that he had visited to run vegetables to more than once — compares to the sight in front of him.

Looking up at the bear, he looks for a hint of _anything._ Even having traveled with a talking bear for four days could not have prepared him for this.The bear's eyes are trained at the large structure in front of them and Tooru tries to decipher them.He thinks the bear looks sad, almost. Instinctively Tooru reaches his hand out, runs his palm down the fur on the back of the animal's neck.

"Your home is a palace?" he asks, voice muted by Iwa-chan's somber attitude.

"It's not a palace," the bear corrects him, "and it's not my home." A breath escapes a wet, leathery nose, and before Tooru can decipher it Iwa-chan says, "I just live here."

Tooru wants to ask what he means but the bear says, "Come on. Let's get inside before you freeze to death."

Tooru's breath hitches. The words are soft, gentle almost, not at all what Tooru's come to expect from the talking bear. Iwa-chan stands, Tooru's hand dropping from his coat, and steps onto the walkway.Tooru is distracted by his own thoughts for a moment, before hurrying to follow.

The inside of the not-palace isn't objectively warm, but even the protection from the assaulting wind outside is a relief to his body. He still has a lot of questions about what a talking bear is doing living in this kind of place by himself — he assumes based on the eerie quiet and the loud echo of footsteps as he's lead through the entranceway — but he's distracted from asking his questions as he gapes at the high, arched ceiling.He realizes, belatedly, that everything appears to be made of marble. He's so distracted by the engraved strip running the full length of the walls — it seems to be telling some kind of story about a boy, except at some point the boy stops appearing and instead there's a bear — that he walks right into Iwa-chan who is stopped in front of him.

"Iwa-chan?" Tooru asks.

Iwa-chan curses under his breath, stands on his hind legs — prompting Tooru to fail at attempting to force down giggles — and uses his front paw to push open a door.

"I'm starving," he says and Tooru feels his own stomach rumble. Neither of them has had much to eat during their journey, rationing out what they'd taken with them from the Oikawa farm. They had managed to roast the occasional white rabbit or fox over their evening fire, but it was difficult for Iwa-chan to catch anything with dark fur that stood out against the snow-covered terrain.

The kitchen is smaller than he would have thought, and his face must show this, because Iwa-chan says, "Normally this area would only be seen by the servants, but—"

Tooru has already figured out that there are no servants, and Iwa-chan doesn't bother to explain this to him. Though, it does make Tooru wonder about the walkway outside and the trimmed hedges. It certainly couldn't be that Iwa-chan was taking care of the grounds when he had just spent the last four days traveling with Tooru. He ends up attempting to cook with Iwa-chan's supervision since he's the one with thumbs.

"Iwa-chan?"

"You don't have to keep saying that name. We're the only ones around, I know you're talking to me."

Despite the message of the words, his tone is not actually annoyed. Tooru smirks at him and the bear's eyes shift away.He lays on the ground and lets his chin rest between his paws in a way that reminds Tooru of waking up to the sight of a bear across from him in the barn all those winters ago.

"If this isn't your home, then where _is_ your home?"

Iwa-chan makes a soft _hmm_ and then says simply, "Gone."

He says it so casually that Tooru is sure, were he human, he would have shrugged a shoulder.But, after days of traveling with the bear, Tooru is getting to know him better and he can tell by the bear's eyes that it is _not_ casual. Tooru feels a tug on his chest, and he frowns a little but goes back to trying not to burn dinner.

*

Tooru's brain tries to process what his eyes see: a bed so big that it would take up more than half of the farmhouse. There's a white blanket with an elaborate and shimmering icy blue design, twisting over the fabric like vines. It's soft to the touch and he's excited to find out just how warm it is underneath.There are seven pillows, all plush and covered in shams that complement the blanket. Like the rest of the not-palace, the walls are high and marble. The ceiling is high, but not arched like the entryway. Two bear sculptures adorn the fireplace, a vase holding a white flower that Tooru can't identify between them. Oil paintings of winter landscapes are hung on the walls. There's a small door that leads to a large closet filled with clothes — nicer than anything Tooru has ever _seen_ nevermind owned — that make Tooru wonder briefly if Iwa-chan was lying about not eating humans and did, in fact, eat the previous residents of the not-palace. _Of course not, you moron,_ he hears Iwa-chan say in his head.

The wall opposite the closet has three adjacent windows all the length of the entire wall and the curtains pulled back to let in the sunlight. He makes his way over to look outside and is greeted with the pristine snow-covered backyard. Different plants, all evergreen, line the back wall of the house. There's an elaborate rock garden with a stream — somehow immune to the below-freezing temperatures and devoid of snow — through it.The sky is turning orange-pink, reflected in the clouds and the sight is so breathtaking that his heart-rate quickens.

"There are other bedrooms if you'd rather sleep in one of those but…" Iwa-chan is standing in the doorway, watching as his jaw hangs open like an idiot as he looks out the window.

Tooru closes his mouth and turns to look at the bear.

" _Hmm?_ " He starts, but then the words process and he turns back to the sunset and says, "No, this is— this is perfect."

A crackling sound pulls him out of his trance, and he whirls around in surprise to see that the fireplace alight. He watches as a log is consumed by the flames, turning to embers. Looking back up his eyes meet Iwa-chan's and he the bear is still in the doorway.

"How did—" he begins, but the bear interrupts his question.

"Come on, I'll show you where the bath is."

The bathroom is elaborate like everything else in the not-palace. Tooru is beginning to feel overwhelmed by all of it. Growing up in a humble farmhouse and living with dirt-caked hands and worn-out trousers and sweat dripping from his forehead did not prepare him for this, no matter how much daydreaming he partook in.The bath is large enough to fit ten people and it's already filled with water, steam rising from it.The smell of trees and mint and soft musk wafts from the bath and he's about to ask Iwa-chan how this is possible, but when he turns to look beside him the bear is gone.

The water is warm and soft against his skin that has become raw and irritated from days of being out in the cold. It feels like a hug from his mother, a hand on his shoulder from his father, a mischievous grin from his sister. He spends too much time in the bath, probably. His fingers prune and the sun sets completely, the night arriving filled with dancing shadows cast from the wall sconces. Like the fireplace, they come to life before Tooru realizes.

Eventually, a large shadow in the doorway appears and tells Tooru that he should find his way back to the bedroom before he's left stranded in the dark.Sure enough, as he gets into the bed, the sconces and candles that lit the room turn dark, the only light left coming from the fireplace. Tooru has a difficult time adjusting to such a soft bed, shifting his position every couple of minutes before he drifts off to sleep.

*

He wakes with a start.He realizes that he is warm from the blankets he's piled on top of himself. The only light comes from the moon and stars, seeping in through the windows where the curtains were never drawn. The only sounds in the room creep in from the outside: the occasional howl of a wolf, the constant whistling of the wind, the creaking of the not-palace settling, the breathing next to him.

It takes a moment for all of the observations of his senses to process into thoughts. He sleepily wonders where Iwa-chan is, but that thought is cut short at the realization that there is a steady breathing coming from his right side. Someone is next to him. Tooru shifts, rolling onto his side, squinting. All he can make out are shadows, and for a moment he thinks it must be Iwa-chan, but the shadow isn't that of a bear, it's that of a human.

His heart pounds against his ribs, in his throat, in his ears. He takes a steadying breath before fingertips tentatively trail along the mattress, towards the other person. Absently, he wonders if it's the owner of the clothes he found earlier.Why didn't Iwa-chan tell him there was another person here?Perhaps someone else is being held captive by the bear, and he wants to shake them awake, talk to them, ask if they should try to escape.

He feels betrayed that such a secret was kept from him. He pouts to himself, it was dumb to trust a talking bear living in an (almost) empty not-palace in the first place.

The edge of his pinky finger hits skin — not fur — as he suspected. Slowly, his fingertips continue their investigation. He makes three observations, from what his fingers learn: 1) He is currently caressing a stranger's wrist. 2) The said stranger has warm, soft skin. 3) At a soft sigh released from foreign lips as the stranger shifts slightly — causing Tooru to hold his breath and pull his hand away for fear of waking them up — the person in the bed is another man.

He does not fall back asleep.

*

After that first night, he doesn't cook again. There's no reason to, food is ready to eat the way the bath is just filled with hot, clean, perfumed water each night. Tooru has a lot of questions about what's going on, but after Iwaizumi avoids his questions about the stranger in his bed, Tooru doesn't trust him enough to ask anything else about the not-palace.

He spends enough time with the bear won't so he won't get suspicious of Tooru's sudden change of heart and failing of trust in the bear. Sometimes, though, Tooru forgets that he shouldn't trust Iwaizumi, and his own thoughts slip into calling the bear Iwa-chan again.

A few days after arriving at the not-palace, Iwaizumi makes it especially difficult for Tooru to be secretly wary of him.They are eating a modest breakfast of bread with some strawberry spread when the bear suddenly asks, "You know how to read, right?"

It's not really a question, it's more of an assumption — which shocks Tooru, because most people assume a farmer's son _can't_ read — and it's not really friendly, Iwaizumi's tone is decisively _unfriendly_. Tooru can't decide if this is alarming and worrying, or endearing and sweet.He doesn't like that he can't decide, and it's really unfair of Iwaizumi to make him feel that way when Tooru has resolved not to trust him.

Tooru's mouth is full of the sweet strawberry taste, so he can't speak, he just nods.

"Hm," is all Iwaizumi says.

In the afternoon, Tooru is looking out the window of the bedroom, chin resting on his knees, as he sits on the window seat cushion. He watches a rabbit in that hops tentatively around the backyard when he hears familiar heavy footsteps.Iwaizumi appears in the doorway and asks Tooru to follow him. They take a few turns down different corridors until they're in a wing of the not-palace that Tooru hasn't seen yet, and then a winding staircase up to its last door. Tooru is sure he'll get lost trying to find his way back to the main wing of the not-palace, but he doesn't say that out loud.

He pushes through the door himself.

He tries not to be impressed, but that resolve is lost as soon as his eyes take in the scene before him. Twenty or thirty bookshelves higher than Tooru can probably reach the top of line the walls and run parallel to each other down the center of the room. Tooru looks at Iwaizumi, eyes wide, questioning and shining at the same time.The bear doesn't look at him, doesn't say anything, just turns around and leaves him alone. He doesn't even get to manage a _thank you_ because his thoughts are too lost in awe.

He finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile the Iwaizumi that is clearly keeping some huge secret from him — namely who is the man in his bed at night and why is he there and what is going on — and the Iwaizumi he spends the majority of the daytime with.He's clearly hiding something from Tooru, and yet it is far too difficult for him to believe that it is for some malicious reason.

Soon enough, Tooru falls into a pattern.

He visits the library every day after Iwaizumi shows him how to find it a second and third time. There's a window seat there as well, adorned elaborate cushions and lavish burgundy curtains kept open.Tooru becomes rapidly better at reading, and he starts to think he could even rival a monk. The manual labor of working a farm had kept Tooru muscular but he can feel himself growing soft with all the magical food and being stuck indoors. He asks if he can go outside one morning to which Iwaizumi gives him a blanched look like Tooru is insane and maybe he is. Instead, he finds himself jogging through the halls of the not-palace to let out his pent-up energy, he can't make it up even half the stairs to the library at full sprint, but he decides to set that as a goal.

At night, he takes a bath and then he puts on a warm layer of sleep clothes and gets into the bed, under the pile of blankets. The lights go out, the fireplace stays on. He's determined to stay awake until the stranger returns, but the stranger never shows up before the fireplace goes out. Tooru almost stays awake longer than the fire stays alight on two occasions within the first week, but succumbs to the near-darkness and falls asleep. He does not wake up to the dark every night, but on the nights that he does, the stranger is there already asleep. Tooru learns that he can reach out and touch the stranger's burning skin without waking the other up.Some nights, he spends more time tracing his fingers over veins, muscles, the curve a spine. Other nights it's simply a lingering touch.The stranger never wakes up, and Tooru figures he must be a pretty heavy sleeper.

Tooru thinks he should maybe feel guilty about using this stranger in Iwa-chan's not-palace-slash-not-home for his own emotional comfort. Still, it makes him feel less lonely to know someone is there with him.

One night, tears pour out of him endlessly. He hates crying, he really does. But after nearly three weeks without his family, without the farm, without the river behind the farmhouse, he feels like he's missing a part of himself. He can't help but wonder if they're doing okay, if they're doing as well as Iwa-chan promised him they would. He allows the tears to fall this once, his nose running, soiling the pillow his face is buried into with snot. Sobs shake his ribcage and force whimpers from his reluctant lips, muffled by the soft pillow.

A hand touches his side and he stills. At first, it's just fingertips, soft and barely there, but then fingers and palm melt into his side. It's gentle and comforting, and Tooru knows before he lets his face leave the pillow that the fire has gone out, that he won't be able to see the man's face. Even the sounds that normally seep in from outside are absent tonight. All he can hear is the pounding of his heart and the breathing of the person next to him. For a few moments, he doesn't say anything, doesn't move. He wills his tears to falls silently, afraid that the tiniest shift will cause the hand on him to pull away. 

Slowly, he shifts his body back until his back is pressed against the warm weight of another person. If Tooru's voice was working properly, was not wrecked by his previous sobbing, he would ask who the other man is. He wonders what his voice sounds like.The stranger lets his right arm wrap around Tooru properly, and it's too hot underneath the blankets to be lying together like this, but Tooru still tangles his legs with the other's because for the first time in awhile he feels safe. It's probably just his imagination, but he feels the light press of lips against his neck as he finally drifts to sleep.

*

The next morning, Tooru awakens to an empty bed. He shuffles sleepily down to the dining room and finds a steaming plate on the table. Iwaizumi is nowhere in sight, and there doesn't seem to be any food out for the bear. He eats silently, eyes constantly flitting towards the doorway, ears poised to hear the familiar heavy footsteps of the bear. Belatedly, he realizes he is not supposed to allow himself to be so comfortable around Iwaizumi — he's failed again. 

That afternoon he sits in the library a book propped open on his lap that he's not really paying reading.He's too distracted by the aching in his chest for his family and the memory of the events of the night before. He presses his temple against the chilly window and closes his eyes, immediately betrayed by his own brain which cannot stop thinking of the man in his bed. He hears the door to the library open and he half expects to see a man when he looks up, but of course, it isn't. Of course, it's Iwaizumi.

"Iwa-chan," he says. Today he doesn't even pretend to sound chipper.

"You miss your family," Iwaizumi says without preamble. It's a statement and Tooru can do nothing but swallow and nod. "You want to go back?"

Tooru isn't sure what to say. He takes a deep breath, but before he can say anything Iwaizumi is speaking again. "I'm not holding you here against your will, you know. You're allowed to leave whenever."

 _But I still owe you my life_ , Tooru thinks. Instead, he asks, "What about my family? All those promises you made—"

"Have been fulfilled," Iwaizumi says and Tooru tries to detect the malice in his voice but either he misses it or it doesn't exist.

"And if I go back?" Tooru asks, "What happens?"

Green eyes harbor a pained expression for a half second that Tooru would have missed if he were not looking so intently for ulterior motives. 

Iwaizumi is silent for a beat too long. When he finally speaks he says, "To your family? I don't know. They might be fine, or—"

"Or they might lose everything?" Tooru asks, but it isn't a question. 

Iwaizumi's eyes give him his answer, anyway.

"Can I visit them?" he asks, "I don't— I don't know what it is I'm doing for you by being here except — except giving you company, I guess, but you have the other guy for that, too, and — and I'll come back. I just want to see how they're doing."

Iwaizumi doesn't look at him, and for a moment Tooru doesn't realize the words that have left his mouth.He hasn't mentioned the other man since Iwaizumi avoided his questions on his second day in the not-palace.  The bear avoids looking at him.Tooru thinks it was a mistake to mention the other man, especially when he's trying to convince the bear to allow him a favor. Finally, though, Iwaizumi lets out a sigh.

"Fine," Iwaizumi says, "you can go."

"I don't know the way," Tooru says, scratching the back of his neck.

"You don't need to.There's a spotted mare in the stables—" he nods his head out the window, snout pointing in the direction of the stables that are just out of sight, "She knows the way."

Tooru opens his mouth to thank Iwaizumi but Iwaizumi says, "Be back in under a fortnight…" He pauses and adds, voice so low that Tooru almost misses it, "if you plan on coming back, that is." The words are meant to sound like an afterthought, but Tooru hears a plea.

He blinks twice then throws his arms around his broad chest and buries his face into the dark fur that he hasn't touched since they've arrived at the not-palace, at not-home.

"Thank you," he whispers, even though he's pretty sure Iwaizumi can't hear his muffled words.

*

The spotted mare does indeed know the way, but to Tooru's disappointment, she cannot speak.The journey feels both longer and shorter because it _is_ shorter this time, but Iwaizumi is not with him to make banter.He silently chastises himself, _you're not supposed to trust him._  
  
It's colder, sleeping by himself under the open winter sky.

At first, he thinks they've arrived at the wrong house but then he sees his brother-in-law outside, laughing as if he hadn't been confined to a bed for nearly a year and a half. His mother exits the house — much bigger than he remembers it but still tiny compared to Iwaizumi's not-palace — and her eyes lock on him immediately. After a teary reunion with his parents, his sister, his brother-in-law and his nephew he informs them that he'll only be staying for about a week and a half. 

After the first night, he becomes increasingly annoyed at all of his family members for trying to convince him to stay.He claims he wants to (it's more lie than truth if he's honest with himself) but he doesn't know if all of the good things that have come to them will remain along with him. Besides, Tooru reminds them, he does still owe his life. He has yet to pay back his debt to Iwaizumi Hajime.

The week and a half are spent helping his brother-in-law with duties that previously were carried out alone.  And in the evenings he sits with his nephew in his lap asking him all kinds of questions about where he's been while his mother and sister sit by the wood stove, listening as he tells stories about the not-palace. He talks about the immaculate walkway and the shrubbery, the delicious food that's always ready before he even realizes he's hungry, the warm baths ready each night.There's a light in his eyes as he tells them about the library and his goal to be able to sprint to the top of the stairs.

He doesn't mention the man in his bed, thinks it's best not to, but his mother knows when he's hiding something.One night after dinner, after the rest of the family is asleep, she comes into the main room where Tooru sits, legs wrapped into himself, on an armchair, and asks what it is he's not telling her.

"I'm not hiding anything," he lies.

She narrows her eyes at her son and because he loves his mother and has never been one to disobey her (at least not since he was young) he sighs and tells her what she wants to hear.

"There is one thing I didn't mention," he begins.He tells her about the man who sleeps in his bed, about how some nights he wakes up and lets his fingers linger against the warm skin that reminds him he isn't all alone even if he gets lonely.He keeps the events of the night leading to his trip back to her private, it feels too intimate to share.He bites his lip and then admits that it's taking a toll on him because he doesn't even know the man's name, has never seen his face, and Iwaizumi made it clear that it isn't a topic he wants Tooru to bring up.  
  
He has so many questions weighing on his mind.

When he's finished speaking, she offers him a soft smile and a pat on the hand. He thinks that's the end of it until he's saying goodbyes to his family.

"When will we see you again?" His father asks.

"I'm not sure," Tooru says. _I don't know if you will_ , he doesn't say.

Taking him aside to say goodbye to him, his mother hands him a box, and he takes it even though his eyes are wary.

"Don't you want to know who it is you're sleeping next to?" She asks, with a wink when he looks back at her.

He feels guilty, almost, taking whatever is in the box. But if Iwaizumi can keep a secret, then he figures he's allowed that much as well. He tucks the box into his bag before embracing his mother and saying goodbye.

"Come back soon, okay?" she says.

*

The look in Iwaizumi's eyes is genuine surprise when Tooru returns.

" _Mean_ , Iwa-chan, I thought you trusted me." Tooru whines. 

A breathy laugh escaping the bear's nose, now familiar, is the only reply he gets.

*

When he's alone in the bedroom, sitting against the window, he pulls his mother's box out of his bag and slowly takes the cover off. Inside is a single candle and pack of matches. He takes the book of matches in his hand and turns them over.There are words on the back, painfully small calligraphy, and even if the letters were legible it doesn't seem to be written in Japanese.He hums to himself before placing the matches in the box with the candle, and placing it underneath the bed before heading up to the library.

At night, against his will, he falls asleep before the fire goes out.

He wakes up to familiar breathing at his side. Hastily — so hastily he almost falls out of the bed entirely — he reaches underneath the bed and gropes in the dark for the box with the candle and the matchbook with illegible scrawl.

 _Don't you want to know who it is you're sleeping next to_? His mother's words come back to him as he struggles in the dark to light a match.

 _Yes,_ he thinks as the match comes to light. _Yes, I want to know._

He holds his breath as he aligns the match with the wick of the candle and then everything is bright and hazy like he's dreaming. _Magic._ The candle is magic. This realization distracts him for only a second because he finally is about to see the face of the man whose skin he's memorized between the twilight hours.

He shifts, sitting so he's facing the other man, and tilts his head down.

He tries to memorize the features, the hair sticking out in every direction, the severe eyebrows, the tan skin, the curve of arm muscles. The man's eyes snap open. _Green, green, green_ is the only thing that registers.He recoils, sitting back on his heels, rapidly blinking, heart pounding like he's just run up the library stairs fifty times in a row, gasping for shallow breaths.

*

_He is playing with his big sister along the path outside the farmhouse.She seems reluctant to entertain him, but their mother scolded her for being mean to him (at which point Tooru stuck his tongue out at her behind their mother's back) because he's only five and apparently too young to play without supervision._

_A man comes up the path with a lady and a boy who looks about Tooru's age. The two adults ask his sister if their parents are around.Something to do with taking over a farm nearby after a family member passed away. Tooru decides the conversation is dull and looks at the boy who is scowling.Or maybe that's just his face._

_"Your hair is spiky," Tooru says to the boy._

_"Your hair is stupid," The boy spits back at him._

_Tooru goes_ hmmmm, _like his father does when he's thinking and then he asks, "Do you want to be friends?"_

 _He half expects the boy to say no but then he hears, "Yeah_ , _sure."_

_"Okay," Tooru says, "what's your name?"_

_"Iwaizumi Hajime," the boy's chest puffs out as he introduces himself._

_Tooru's eyes glimmer, bright as the sun, as he says, "I'm going to call you Iwa-chan."_

_*_

_"_ Tooooooruuuuu, _"_ _the familiar voice of the boy from the farm up the river teases._

_Iwa-chan is bouncing on his heels, hands hidden behind his back. He eyes his friend warily because the other only ever gets like this when he wants to tease him. Last time he said Tooru's name like that Tooru ended up running home crying. Despite that, they are best friends by default, and Tooru quickly forgave Iwa-chan for putting a spider in his hair when he realized how easily bored he got with no one else to play with._

_"What is it?"Tooru asks._

_"I got you a present," Iwa-chan replies, but there's a glint in those green eyes that Tooru knows better than to believe._

_He watches as Iwa-chan slowly pulls his arms out from behind his back. He seems calm as ever as he shows Tooru the palm of his hand and Tooru nearly pukes because Iwa-chan is holding a stag beetle like it's nothing._

_"I don't want your gross present," Tooru says, trying to sound brave but his voice breaks a little._

_He wants to look away from the large beetle lightly fluttering its wings atop Hajime's palm, but no matter how gross he finds it he can't look away. Iwa-chan grins, like this is the reaction he wanted — the bully — and he takes a step towards Tooru. Tooru takes a step back. In the end, Iwa-chan fails to get the beetle into Tooru's hair like he was definitely planning on, but he does catch up to Tooru, tackling him like he's a guard chasing a thief._

_*_

_"Hajime, no,"Iwa-chan's mother scolds him when he asks if he and Tooru can play near the river._

_Tooru doesn't know why Iwa-chan asks permission, because they end up at the river anyway, tossing a doll that Tooru had snuck from his older sister's room. She wouldn't miss it, hadn't even touched it in years._

_"Don't worry, Tooru, I can get it," Iwa-chan says confidently. Tooru believes him, has no reason not to._

_Iwa-chan grabs a long branch and runs down to get ahead of where the current is pulling the doll.He leans over the edge of a particularly large rock formation that goes over the river using the branch to fish the doll out of the water.Tooru watches in horror as Iwa-chan leans just a little too far, loses his balance, and falls.But there's no splash.Tooru runs to where his friend just was seconds before, leans over the side of the rock, sees nothing._

_"Hajime!" He calls._

_Then he blinks. Looks around, confused.What is he doing by the river?Wasn't he just sitting by the wood stove in the farmhouse?_

_*_

"It— It's you," Tooru stammers the words, forcing them out. He wants to say so much more, but the words catch underneath his heart which is currently lodged in his throat.He feels dizzy and nauseous and betrayed and elated all at once."Why," he manages to get out with much effort, "why didn't you tell me th—" he huffs and tries to breathe normally, forgetting his question. He feels like he might throw up, or pass out, or _both._ His mind is rejecting the possibility that the bear who saved his life when he was twelve, his forgotten childhood best friend who maybe did but actually probably didn't fall into the river, and the man who has been sleeping next to him for weeks, are all the same person.

Iwa-chan grabs Tooru's wrist, eyes wide. He glares a look that pierces straight through Tooru's own eyes and into his heart. It's too bright and foggy, still, and Tooru cannot decipher the meaning of the glare Iwa-chan is giving him. He can barely focus because his mind is stuck on repeat, _'Iwa-chan_ ' becoming a mantra. He wants to reach out with his free hand and touch the other man, trace his collarbone, cup his face and make sure he's _real_ but his wrist burns where the other has a death grip on him, and the look in his eyes is terrifying.

"Do you have _any idea_ what you've just done?"

The words come out harsh and, though his voice is low it still causes Tooru's ears to ring.It's not nearly as deep as the voice Iwa-chan has a bear, but it's still gruff or maybe that's just the anger. 

"I—" Tooru begins to try to explain, mind still reeling, but Iwa-chan cuts him off.

"One week — _one week_ — and this would have been over," the other man hisses.

"I don't understand," Tooru tries his hardest to fight the tears threatening to escape him, because it's _Iwa-chan_. They've found each other, they're alive, they're both here. But Iwa-chan is angry at him, angry at _Tooru_."I don't understand," he says again, "why— why are you angry?"

The features on Iwa-chan's face soften, and his grip softens, too.  Iwa-chan leans forward to blow out the candle, leaving them with alone with the moonlight.

He gently takes the candle from Tooru and tosses it to the side, tears spilling over Tooru's lashes as Iwa-chan's arms wrap around him. He fails to keep his breathing steady, fails to stop his chest from heaving as he cries.Iwa-chan doesn't tell him not to cry.Instead, he presses a soft kiss into the skin where Tooru's jawbone meets his neck.Lips trail along Tooru's jaw, leaving kisses in their wake until they reach his chin. When Iwa-chan pulls back, it's to use his thumb to wipe the tears against Tooru's cheeks.

"I have to go," Iwa-chan says and he sounds so calm, despite the anger in his eyes only moments ago. "She's going to take me away now."

Tooru wants to ask — _Go where? Who is she? Take you where?_ — but then Iwa-chan says, "You need to hide, okay?"

"Hide?" Tooru asks, voice hoarse from crying, breath uneven.

"Yes," Iwa-chan says, "hide."

A loud sound from the first floor startles Tooru. He doesn't realize at first that it's the door to the not-palace bursting open.

"Shit," Iwa-chan says, "no time."

Iwa-chan's fingers interlace with Tooru's and the man gets out of bed, tugging on Tooru's hand to make him follow.He opens the door to the walk-in closet, pulls Tooru in behind him, and lets his arms wrap around Tooru in an instant. Tooru's state is still only half-aware at best, but he returns the embrace, fingernails digging into the other's back because it's _Iwa-chan_ and he's _here_ and Tooru cannot lose him.

Tooru cannot lose him. Not now. Not now. Not again.

"When you hear the front door close, count to one hundred and then you can come out, okay?" Iwa-chan whispers into Tooru's neck.

Tooru nods.

"Repeat what I just said," Iwa-chan prompts.

"Wait for the door to close, count to one hundred."

Iwa-chan lets out an exhale, pulling Tooru even tighter against him. "I love you, Tooru."

The other pulls back a little, the moonlight hitting his face. Tooru can see the pained smile as he drops a hand to squeeze his old friend's, his other hand cupping Tooru's cheek thumb wiping the tears that are still pouring from him. They are so close, but not close enough, and it makes Tooru's heart clench. Hajime kisses Tooru open-mouthed and desperate. Their lips are chapped against one another, and Tooru's sure he tastes like salt from his tears, sure that there's mucus mixed in from his running nose, but Hajime kisses him anyway.

He isn't prepared to let go, but the other pulls away from his grasp and steps back over the threshold, closing the closet door behind him.

The world goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've really wanted to do a retelling of this fairytale for ages because it's absolutely one of my favorites and I never just really found a ship that spoke to me in a way i felt could carry the plot of one of the best and baddest fairytales of all time, and then i started watching haikyuu!! and fell into the seventh circle of iwaoi hell and well... here we are.
> 
> chat about fairytales with me on [tumblr](https://keishn.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/keishn_)!


	2. the castle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *comes in three months later and slams 48 pages face down on your desk* *heelys away*

In the dark of the bedroom closet, Tooru fails miserably at ignoring the loud, booming sounds coming from the floor below them. To his ears, it sounds as if the strongest man alive found the heaviest boulder and is throwing it repeatedly against the floor of the not-palace. The sound comes from the direction of the stairwell; the ground beneath him is shaking.He stumbles backward, falls as his foot catches on something, and proceeds to crawl backward until his back hits the wall. 

Drawing his knees to his chest, Tooru buries his face in them. He's no longer crying; he's not sure when he stopped, all he knows is there are no tears on his cheeks. The loud crashing stops, and for a moment, Tooru thinks it's over. 

The door to the bedroom crashes open. His breath catches when he remembers that Iwa-chan— Hajime— is out there, open to the attacks of the mystery noisemaker. Tooru should be out there with him, this is all his fault. He can't make himself move from his huddled position in the closet. Hearing muffled speaking coming from the other side of the closet door, he stills, lifting his face before shifting onto hands and knees and crawling over to the other side of the closet. He presses his ear as close to the crack underneath the door as he dares, trying to hear better. 

"— in any case," a shrill voice he doesn't recognize is saying, "I'm sure you regret your decision. That farm boy of yours didn't stand a chance here, anyway. You went and put a human in danger taking him here, Hajime. Did you really expect him to break your curse?" 

"Don't you dare call me Hajime."

"Talking back? Well, we'll see how much you feel like letting your tongue slip when Kentarou sniffs out that precious farm boy of yours. Maybe I'll cut out his tongue."

Tooru has to try not to gasp. 

"He won't find him," Hajime says. 

"He will," is the retort that comes back filled with pettiness and poison. "Kentarou has never once failed me." 

"If he does," Hajime says, "you better not touch a hair on his head, or I will personally drive a blade through yours and your daughter's hearts." 

Things go silent for a moment and Tooru sits back on his heels. After a long moment, he stands up just at there's footsteps banging down the hallway; someone is sprinting towards them. 

"Ah," says the shrill voice, muffled now that his ear is no longer against the opening beneath the door. "Kentarou, you check this room and bring the brat when you find him; I'll bring Hajime down to the carriages and be sure to make him comfortable." 

There are footsteps throughout the room, slow and careful. Tooru tries to find the very back of the closet without stumbling or making noise. He presses himself behind some clothes that smell like dust and mothballs. What a man who spends all of his daytime as a bear needs with this many clothes is beyond Tooru's brain capacity. Maybe these were never Iwaizumi's clothes, maybe this was never his not-palace. 

_It's not my home._

The door to the closet opens slowly, and moonlight paints the floor.A shadow of a man seeps in and Tooru thinks this is how it all ends. A hand grips the clothes and pushes them out of the way and he's suddenly face-to-face with a boy with darkly lined eyes and close-shaved hair. He can't be any older than Tooru— possible he's even younger— but there's a scowl on his face and lines between his eyebrows. They stare at each other for a moment in silence. This must be the Kentarou the shrill woman was talking about. 

"Huh," he says after the longest silence Tooru's ever endured. "You're not— what I expected." 

His voice is deep and it puts Tooru on edge but the boy steps back. 

"Wait here," he says. 

"What will she do to me?" Tooru asks. 

The boy's glower darkens. "Nothing. I'm not gonna turn you in, I —"

"Hah?" Tooru hears himself ask because he doesn't really believe it, that a stranger could be so kind. 

"What I just said," the boy says. "I don't have time to explain but just— " 

Kentarou cuts off, but he stands there for a moment longer continuing to glare at Tooru. 

There's a moment that Tooru thinks he might change his mind, might grab Tooru and force him out of the closet, out of the bedroom, out of the not-palace.The boy does none of that though, he simply leaves, doesn't even throw another glance behind him.

*

After Kentarou leaves, Tooru pulls clothing off of the racks in the closet. He starts to layer as much clothing as possible without restricting his movement.He finds scarves and wraps one around his mouth, his nose, his neck, and the other he ties over his hair to cover his ears.Opening up all of the drawers he sees, he finds in one a pair of soft, white mittens. He pulls those over his hands. 

He isn't sure how long it's been since he's heard the door close but he assumes it's been at least as long as Iwaizumi had told him to wait, probably longer.

Underneath him, as he's stepping towards the bedroom door so he can exit the not-palace, the ground shifts. His heart lurches and Tooru breaks into a run, but as soon as he reaches the edge of the stairwell the ground beneath him crumbles and he falls to the lower level, knee hitting against the marble floor. He gasps at the searing pain and he wants to wait to make sure he's okay, but the pieces of the not-palace that are falling away disappear before his eyes and he needs to get out of this place _now_. He doesn't care that the pain sears down into the floor from his knee with every beat of his foot against the marble; he sprints for the door.

He pauses, eyes wide, as he watches the frame of the doorway start to crack and crumble, then he pulls the door open and finds himself surrounded by nothing but blankets of snow.There's no sign of the backyard, no shrubs, no masoned pathway from the front stairs. 

He pants as his mind struggles to keep up with his observations.It can't be real. It can't be real and yet it is. The air is so cold in the dark of the night that each light breeze sends needles into his skin, through every layer of clothes, making it difficult to breathe. 

Something warm and heavy presses against his back. He whirls around, blinks, stops short. 

"Oh," he says, the words muffled against the scarf on his mouth, "it's you." 

Tooru brings a hand up to pet the spotted mare's neck. 

"It's just you and me now, I guess." 

He clambers onto her back and twists his fingers into the hair of her mane. 

"Can you follow them?" he asks her, pulling down the hem of his scarf. "Can you bring me to him?" 

Under the darkened sky lit up with stars, Tooru tries to not think about how the cold air might be what kills him.He tries not to think about how hungry he is.He runs through the events of the previous night over and over in his head, still not really fathoming most of it.He remembers Hajime's voice, the moment of anger in his eyes,"do you have any idea what you've done?" This is all his own fault, and Tooru feels sick with guilt.He doesn't know exactly how it's his fault except it has to do with the magic candle.Hajime was taken away because of him. 

The mare— steadily running as he grips her fur and buries his face against her neck— knows the way home. He could go back now. Whatever Hajime had planned when he took Tooru from his home in the first place is beyond his grasp,but he's sure it must be halted after the events that transpired in the dark bedroom while he hid in the walk-in closet. He could go home to his parents and his sister and his brother-in-law and his nephew.

There's no point in going home, though. Not now. Not without Hajime.

*

They can't have been moving for more than a few hours, but for Tooru it still feels like centuries before he sees a small cottage at the base of a mountain. Yellow light spills from one of the windows and smoke plumes from the chimney.If Tooru were less desperate, less tired, less cold, less lost, less heartbroken he might be suspicious enough to ignore the small building and keep going through the night on his own.Tonight is not that night so he slides off the mare's back and his knuckles rap against the wooden door three times in quick succession. 

He fiddles with the hem of his scarf and waits impatiently until the door swings inward. Standing in the doorframe is a boy with messy black hair and eyes the color of the sky behind the stars and the moon. The boy looks younger than Tooru, can't be older than fourteen or fifteen, and he simply blinks once and stares. 

"Uh—" Tooru articulates, pulling down his scarf to speak. "I was hoping you could help me." 

Instead of answering him, the boy hums, disappears into the house for a moment, then returns and makes his way towards the mare.He pets her and then uses his hands to push her gently and guide her towards the other side of the small house. 

"Hey! You can't just—" Tooru protests before the other kid interrupts him. 

"It's too cold to leave her outside." 

Tooru sighs but follows the boy along to the other side of the house where he sees a barn.Once the mare is safely within it, he gives her a few comforting strokes along the side of her neck before returning to the small cottage with the younger boy. 

"Do you live by yourself?" he asks, eyebrows drawing together.

The boy chooses to not reply and rather than question it, Tooru simply follows him inside. He isn't really verbally invited to go in but the other male leaves the door open behind him as he disappears into the house again.Tooru falls asleep quickly, on the floor in front of the fireplace. 

When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is a glint of light that blinds his eyes. e blinks, squints, and jerks his head away from the offending object.The object shakes, and Tooru realizes it's attached to a hand which is attached to a boy— the boy who let him inside last night. The boy who is the reason that Tooru is not dying of cold exposure right this minute.He shakes the object in Tooru's face again and Tooru's gaze focuses.It's an apple. Only, it's solid gold. 

"Take it," the boy says. 

"What? But—" 

"You need to find your prince right?" 

Tooru's eyebrows draw together. "Pri— what?" 

"Iwaizumi. You're looking for him." 

It isn't a question, but Tooru answers anyway, "Um. Yes?"Prince?

"Take it," the boy repeats, shaking the apple again. 

Tooru wraps a hand around it, the other boy letting go, though Tooru has no idea what he's supposed to do with such a thing. 

"How did you know that I'm looking for Iwa-chan?" 

The boy lets out a huff of breath, clearly annoyed at Tooru's question, but Tooru keeps his gaze locked on the shorter male.His expression is almost indignant, and Tooru thinks maybe the question won't be answered. He clearly does not understand this boy who lives alone in the middle of the woods. The silence lingers between them as they stare at each other, and for a moment Tooru wonders if he's being sized up.A boy with a golden apple is surely magic, and that's not necessarily something Tooru is capable of handling. 

At length, the boy blinks once. He turns on his heel and Tooru almost follows him but instead sits in place on the floor where he'd fallen asleep the night before. He studies the apple, eyes narrowing as he turns it in his hands. His grip around it tightens and, no, this is not any normal apple. It's most definitely solid gold— or at least some sort of metal that's been altered to look like gold. 

"You should get back to looking," the boy tells him upon returning. 

*

In the stables, without so much as a simple comment, the boy sets up the spotted mare with a saddle. 

"I—" 

"That should help," he says to Tooru, "you can keep it in this." He tugs at one of the bags hanging off of the mare's saddle.Tooru glances down at the apple in his own mittened hands. 

"Thank you," he says, at length, still looking at the apple. He looks up, "You, ah, you never told me your name."

"Oh." There's a pause before he says, "It's Kageyama." 

The boy says nothing else and makes his way back towards the front of the house.Tooru watches him disappear around the corner of the barn and then tugs at the new reins on the spotted mare, leading her outside. 

*

The sun is beginning to set on the horizon when he reaches another small house. He's surprised— almost more surprised than upon finding the first house— because one house at the base of a mountain in the freezing weather is a miracle and an improbable blessing to a tired man, but two is impossible. This time, when he knocks on the door the response is prompt. A tall man, possibly close to his own age, with a head shaped like a root vegetable from his father's farm, opens the door and gives him a curious look. 

"Can I help you?" the other male asks. 

Tooru isn't exactly sure what to say so he says, "I hope so." 

"Are you lost?" 

At this, Tooru doesn't know what to say. Is he lost? He feels as though he's been wandering aimlessly— or with an aim but without direction— so he says, instead of answering, "I'm looking for someone." 

The other man blinks then steps aside, motioning for Tooru to come in. 

Turnip-head's home is about the same size as the first house. Tooru wonders if the two men in the mountain know about each other; if that's true then it's possible Turnip-head knows—

"Iwaizumi," Turnip-head says when the front door to the cabin latches shut behind him. Then he turns slightly pink and looks away from Tooru when he asks, "Right?" 

"How did you know?" Tooru asks. 

The other male shrugs. "There aren't many of us that live out in these parts. My closest neighbors are each a day out. It's too bad she took him, I thought maybe his curse would finally be broken."

Instead of answering his question, Turnip-head has brought up a new one. Tooru blinks, tilts his head, slowly forming the question. "Curse?" 

"Oh, he… yeah. Iwaizumi's been cursed since childhood," Turnip-head says as if it's obvious. He looks at Tooru as if this is something he should have already known and—

Tooru bites on his bottom lip, piecing the information together. A talking bear, a man sharing his bed at night, a magic palace that crumbled into nothing, green eyes, "—do you have any idea—", "I have to go, she's going to take me away now." _Curse._ The realization screeches in Tooru's mind. Of course. Of course it was a curse. "I thought maybe his curse would finally be broken," echoes in his ears and— 

And Tooru— Tooru has messed everything up. He is the reason the curse isn't broken. He, his mother's magic candle, and his awful _awful_ curiosity. 

"Do you want to maybe sit near the fire? I was just about to finish cooking dinner…" Turnip-head breaks through his thoughts, but he can only nod numbly in response to the suggestion as he shuffles his feet over before sitting cross-legged in front of the fireplace. 

The stranger is kind enough to share his dinner with Tooru, which Tooru's stomach is wholly grateful for. He doubts the gold apple would be edible, anyway. The food is more delicious than anything Tooru has ever eaten, but maybe that's his hunger talking. He's experienced it before: not getting enough to eat for weeks on end at the farm, before finally being able to eat to his stomach's content, the food tasting better than anything he'd ever eaten before. 

"What did you mean," he asks, "when you said he was cursed?" 

"I don't really know the details," Turnip-head says, "but if you keep heading up the mountain there's another house. The guy who lives there knows a lot more about that stuff than I do. He might have an idea." 

"Do you know who she is?"

At this, Turnip-head pauses his chewing, sets the food in his hands down, and looks up at Tooru. He blinks then says, "You really don't know anything?" 

Tooru offers a shrug. _I guess not,_ he thinks. 

Turnip-head reaches into the pocket of his trousers and fishes something out. He holds it in his palm, arm outstretched for Tooru to see. 

"It's a comb," Tooru says, looking at the gold decorative hair piece. 

Turnip-head nods. "It's for you." 

"What?" 

"I just… I don't know. It just feels like I should be giving this to you now." 

Tooru hesitantly reaches out to take the possession from Turnip-head. 

"I'm Kindaichi… Yuutarou. By the way," he says awkwardly, after the fact. 

*

Comb and apple safely tucked into the saddlebags on the spotted mare's back, Tooru continues on the path up the mountain. 

"Well," he says to his horse, "perhaps we'll get to find out something substantial." 

Tooru tries not to think about the fact that it's been two nights now, and he's probably far further from Hajime than acceptable. Surely, a woman who could curse Hajime from childhood could whisk him away to another dimension? If that's the case, Tooru wonders how to proceed. All he knows is that he will; he will not give up. Not now. Not when he's braved the cold nights. Not now. Not when he knows Iwa-chan is Iwa-chan.

"Can you cross dimensions?" he asks the horse from behind his scarf; he doesn't expect a response and he's pretty sure he knows the answer already. 

This time, he knows to look for another house, another isolated mountain-dweller. 

They're starting to near the top of the mountain, the path narrowing, the drop-off terrifying. Tooru keeps telling himself not to look down. Hajime wouldn't be scared. Taking a deep breath, fingers curling tighter around the mare's reigns, he steels himself. He has to do this.

When they finally reach the next house, Tooru wonders how much distance they've covered. It's been days.Hajime is likely so far gone that Tooru will never reach him. 

The wind whistles through tree branches as Tooru waits outside the door for the inhabitant of the small mountain shack to open it. 

When it does open, Tooru is greeted by a severe-looking boy with dark hair and muted eyes. 

"Oh," the boy says without preamble, "you're him." 

Tooru's eyebrows scrunch together and he wonders how all of these mysterious mountain people seem to know he's arriving before he knows where he's even going. 

"I'm who exactly?" Tooru asks, impatient. 

The shorter boy blinks."The human that was supposed to break Iwaizumi-san's curse." 

Tooru lets out a frustrated breath."And I didn't, but I'm going to fix it." 

"I see," is all the short boy says. 

"I didn't even know he was cursed."Tooru doesn't know why he's trying to defend himself now, but he is. 

The severe boy makes a _hmm_ sound but says nothing else.He nods his head to motion for Tooru to come in, which Tooru does, closing the small door behind him. The smell of wood burning in the fireplace invades his nostrils; the light that shines through the windows doesn't do nearly enough to brighten the small, dusty house. Tooru briefly wonders whether the boy standing in front of him isn't actually a ghost. 

"How did you know Iwa-chan was cursed?" he asks. 

"The Southern Wind told me," the boy says. 

Tooru blinks. He doesn't understand what that means at all, but he's afraid that asking will make him look stupid so he nods and hopes it's convincing. 

"Do you know where she took him?"

The boy blinks and takes a seat on a wooden chair, folding his arms on the table in front of him. Tooru sits across. 

"The castle east of the sun and west of the moon," the boy says. 

"I have no idea what you're saying," Tooru admits. This is nothing like his family's farm, and there's nothing he can do, probably, to fix what he's broken. Or what he didn't break. 

The boy looks like he's contemplating this, but instead of explaining whatever it is he blows a breath of air through his mouth. Tooru sits there, expectantly. After a few minutes, the boy gets up without a word, walks to the trunk beside his bed, opens it, and pulls out a golden spinning wheel. 

It's small and compact, but it's a spinning wheel made of gold. 

"Take this," the boy says. 

Tooru takes it in one hand. Despite his last two encounters on the mountain, he's still giving the boy a confused look. The boy sighs and makes a waving motion with his hands that Tooru can't decipher. 

"Trolls like pretty things," he says, finally. 

"Oh," Tooru says, not quite fitting the pieces together in his head. 

He thinks back to all the books he read those weeks in the not-palace with Iwa-chan. Trolls like pretty things. That's true; they like pretty things, and they're not very smart. He could easily distract a troll with a golden apple, a golden hair comb, a golden spinning wheel. 

But what do trolls have anything to do with Iwa-chan?

"How do I get there?" he asks, impatient.

"Where?" 

"The castle east of the sun and west of the moon." 

The boy hums even as Tooru keeps his gaze steady and tilts his chin slightly upward. He refuses to be intimidated by the fact that the place has a name that makes no sense. He's sure this whole thing is shrouded in magic and possibly he's going to encounter trolls. A name that makes no sense is the least of his worries. 

"The Southern Wind can probably get you there," the boy answers at last. 

"The southern wind?" 

"At sunrise, you'll just keep heading up the path, to the top of the mountain. You'll know when you've right him." 

_Him?_ Tooru wonders, but he doesn't ask aloud. 

The next morning, he adds the spinning wheel to the satchel with the apple and the comb and glances at the small mountainside dwelling before saying, "Thank you, uh—" 

"Kunimi," the boy supplies. 

"Thank you, Kunimi."

*

The closer to the top of the mountain that Tooru and the mare reach, the more difficult it becomes to oppose the wind churning in nearly every direction around them. With each push of it, against him, Tooru's eyes burn and his lungs nearly give out.He has to keep his eyes closed and eventually they reach the top of the mountain. It's in a bubble; the wind that surrounds the mountain affecting everything but the peak itself. 

"I was wondering when you would make it,"a voice says from just behind him once he dismounts from the mare.

Tooru jumps towards the sky then slowly turns to face a man his own age with pink hair and nearly invisible eyebrows. There's an amused expression on his face, likely from Tooru's reaction to his sneaking up on him. For a moment, Tooru wonders what kind of trickster hangs out on the tops of mountains in the middle of the nowhere. 

_Him_ , Tooru thinks. Aloud, expression deadpan, he says, "The Southern Wind." 

"Sure, I guess," the man says. "In this form, I go by Hanamaki. Or Takahiro. Or just Hiro but only Issei is allowed to use that one." 

"Oh?" Tooru says, because what is one supposed to say to something like that?

The sun reflects off the snow too brightly in Tooru's eyes. They're too high up for there to be many trees, but the ones around are bent in odd angles, permanently malformed from the constant assault of the wind. The wind, which is really a man with pink hair. Or is the main with pink hair who is really the wind?

"Now, I could ask you what you want, but I think I already know." 

"How do you—" 

"I'm not clairvoyant if that's what you're about to ask. Not like those other guys," Hanamaki says and Tooru mouths the words _other guys?_ but Hanamaki doesn't pay him much attention. "I just see a lot, being up here." 

As Tooru stands on the summit, he understands. He looks down, leaning over the edge, and can see all of the earth from here, it seems. He wonders if he can find the farmhouse somewhere below them. He thinks about the snow on the ground and wonders if his not breaking the curse has taken away everything from his family. His stomach twists. 

"It looks like something's on your mind," the Southern Wind says, pulling Tooru by the skin of his neck upwards.

"It doesn't matter." 

The pink-haired man who controls half the sky starts humming a tune that Tooru doesn't recognize, and Tooru isn't quite sure what to say. 

"Can you get me there?" he asks, finally. 

"Where?"There's a glint in the man's eyes and Tooru suspects it's because he knows the answer to his own question. 

Tooru's eyes narrow because he doesn't like this game. It shouldn't be a game; Hajime is cursed and gone. It's all Tooru's fault— he needs to fix this. Somehow. He needs to fix this somehow. He bites down on his bottom lip and glances at a branch on the ground, sticking out of the snow. A gust of wind pulls at him, making his hair blow wildly. When he looks up it dies down. 

"I asked where," Hanamaki says. 

"The castle—"

"Not sure you wanna do that," Hanamaki says, tilting his head to one side. 

Hanamaki sits down, legs crossed, in the snow without flinching. Tooru wonders momentarily if he's immortal, if his body is even real. He doesn't make any move to follow him, instead stepping closer to the mare hand idly petting the side of her neck as he tries to think. 

"I do," Tooru says, "I mean, I have to."

"You're a stubborn one aren't you? Okay, what's your plan then?" 

"I don't—" 

"What, do you expect to just stroll up to the front door, be invited in, ask the Troll Queen: 'Hey, could you please let go of the prince I'm in love with? I'd really prefer if he didn't marry an actual, real-life troll,' and end up happily ever after?" 

Tooru's mouth scrunches, eyes narrow, brows pull together. "No," he says, "obviously not." 

"Listen — Oikawa is it?" 

Tooru nods, doesn't bother to wonder how the wind knows his name because— it's the wind and a lot of things haven't made sense since his childhood best friend fell in a river without a splash, never to be seen again. The man straightens his back, still sitting with his legs crossed like some kind of monk, and actually, he's not even sitting in the snow at all. He's sitting centimeters above it, but before Tooru can process this realization the man is speaking again. 

"Listen, Oikawa, the only thing tying you to this world is him.He brought you here knowing full well that the curse might not be broken. As upset as I'm sure he is, I don't think it's necessarily a great idea for you to just go running into the Troll Queen's castle in some rash attempt to save him."

"Well, obviously I wouldn't do that," Tooru says,"I'm not an idiot." 

"What I'm trying to say is, maybe think about this for a second?" Hanamaki says, ignoring his outburst. 

"I have literally spent the last four days climbing this stupid mountain; all I've done is think! I'm not going to just sit around and wait for someone else to save him, if it's a curse and I was supposed to break it— which I didn't— then I want to at least try to fix my mistake. And you said, before— you said marry— marry who?"

"The Troll Queen's daughter." 

Tooru isn't sure that any answer would be good, but he's sure that no other answer could possibly be worse."Iwa-chan is going to marry a troll? An actual troll?"

"The princess is only three-quarters troll, and if I were you I wouldn't mention the fact that they are indeed trolls to the queen. She's only half-troll and vehemently denies it and, assuming that you do get to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon, she will throw you in the dungeon and possibly execute you." 

"She would execute someone for stating a fact?" 

"My, my," Hanamaki drawls, "how naïve you are, indeed." 

Tooru isn't sure that at this point he can argue with that. 

The wind continues, "Well, let me be clear, I don't know you. Also, I think you're an idiot for wanting to go there, but it makes sense that Iwaizumi would try to get someone like you to break his curse. And because he is a dear friend to both myself and Issei, I will bring you to someone who can get you there."

"You mean you can't bring me there?" 

Hanamaki grins with his mouth but his eyes stay unnervingly blank of emotion when he says, "No. But the Northern Wind can." 

*

Tooru has to leave the mare behind but Hanamaki promises that she's in good hands and he'll come back and take of her. Tooru has to hold onto the man which proves to be kind of awkward and Tooru isn't exactly comfortable with the wind, doesn't even trust him if he's being honest, but he said he was good friends with Iwa-chan. This is the only way to have a chance of seeing Iwa-chan again. So he complies. 

Everything moves in a whirlwind, colors swirling around them as Hanamaki brings him to see the Northern wind.The speed and the height make Tooru slightly nauseous, but he's not scared— _he's not._ He reminds himself that at the end of all of this is Iwaizumi Hajime, and while that brings up a lot of other pleasant and unpleasant things in his chest and his gut, it makes the fear that he might fall to his death in this moment something to be easily conquered. 

*

"Issei!"Hanamaki calls the name loudly as soon as they land.

Tooru nearly collapses, falling to knees and dry-heaving over the ground. 

The Southern Wind looks at him apologetically and says, "Sorry. I haven't taken a human along for the ride in awhile, forgot how hard it was on you guys." 

It takes him a few moments to regain himself, and he slowly stands up, glancing at the pink-haired man whose eyes are scanning the top of this mountain.A different mountain, but similar enough to the one that Tooru climbed before. 

A strong wind nearly knocks Tooru over and he hears someone call, "Hiro!" before a man, tall and dark-haired, emerges from the opposite side of the peak. 

"What were you doing down there?" Hanamaki asks, chin lifted eyebrows laced together. 

"Don't worry about it," the other man replies.

The newcomer's eyes find Tooru and a smirk pulls at his lips, eyes light. "Oh?" 

"This is Oikawa Tooru," Hanamaki says like he's introducing an old friend."Oikawa Tooru, this is Matsukawa Issei. The Northern Wind." 

"Oh.Well, Oikawa Tooru, I hope you brought something to sacrifice if you don't intend it be yourself. You interrupted me in the middle of very—" He pauses before saying,"important activities." 

"Oh, yes, the most important," Hanamaki says through his snickering.

Tooru stares, wide-eyed at the tall man. He gulps."Sacrifice?" 

"Oh, yes. Preferably living. But, I'll also accept a fresh kill." 

The look on Tooru's face must be that of horror because Hanamaki says, "He's messing with you." 

Matsukawa's lips turn from a smirk into a more genuine smile and he lets out a laugh. "That one never gets old."He glances at Tooru. "Sorry, it's been awhile since I've interacted with a human. Honestly, it was starting to get boring around here before Iwaziumi brought you. Nice job escaping before the mansion collapsed, by the way." 

"Um, thanks?" 

"Kind of a shame you didn't break the curse though." 

Tooru's face drops at the reminder of his inadequacy. 

Hanamaki says, "Well, he seems more than eager to try to fix things. I told him he's being stupid but he wouldn't listen."

Matsukawa looks at Tooru. "Fix things? How, exactly? You want to go up against an enemy that exists far out of the realm of what your world thinks is possible, and win…. how?" 

"So you can get me to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon?" 

Matsukawa shrugs, "Perhaps. The last time I was there Her Majesty, the Queen," he says her title with a heavy dose of sarcasm, "was just a child. It's a shame how that one turned out." There's a lull in the conversation, silence enveloping the three of them before Matsukawa says, "I can get you there, but you have to figure out the rest yourself."

"Thank you," Tooru says. 

"I'm going to warn you, though," Matsukawa speaks, face serious. "If you die, and Iwaizumi never forgives me for indulging you in this, I will make your next life hell."

*

The trip to the castle takes hours. Tooru hangs to Matsukawa for dear life the entire way, eyelids clamped tightly even as he can feel the swooping of his stomach with every twist and turn.

"Send Her Majesty my regards," the taller man says, with a roll of his eyes."Oh, and tell Iwaizumi he owes me big time for this." 

Before Tooru can properly form a response the Northern Wind disappears, body evaporating as a gust of wind rushes past Tooru, blowing his hair into his face. 

He's left looking around dumbly, not knowing what to do with himself. He glances up at the trees, pine trees, green branches frozen with snow, and there's something about them that seems wrong. Everything about this forest he's been dropped in seems wrong. There's no noise in the distance. Tooru is still reeling from traveling with the wind. He takes a shaky breath and feels in his gut a pull in one direction along the path he's been left in the middle of. 

He starts walking.

*

The arch of the castle appears, cresting above the tree-line before Tooru reaches it. The trees block his sight from most of it but as he walks he's sure the castle is massive. Snow crunches underfoot as he walks, and he wonders how used to walking through snow like this a boy from a farm in the middle of nowhere should be. 

Eventually, the trees come to an end and as Tooru sees the clearing and gray stones of a large palace, he notices a large group of people gathered around the front steps of the castle.He steps into the trees before slowing making his way closer.A shrill voice, one he recognizes all too well, carries over to him, echoing through the opening.Tooru has a feeling that all of the quiet of the forest is her doing. 

"Kyoutani Kentarou," The woman says and Tooru cranes his neck around a tree to try to get a good look at her, "you stand accused of treason. How do you plead?" 

She has long, straight, white hair that falls down her back to her waist.On her head sits an oversized silver crown.Her frame is skinny, reminding Tooru of the starving beggars from the village next to the farm. The boy, Kyoutani Kentarou, is facing him, and even though it was dark in the night that he told Tooru he'd let him escape he's completely recognizable. Kyoutani opens his mouth, baring his teeth, ready to bite. 

"What was that? Speak up, you useless mutt." 

"I said screw you."Kyoutani's voice is low and Tooru would be lying if he weren't a little scared of the man right now. 

Silence hangs heavy over the crowd as Kyoutani stares down the Her Majesty, teeth still bared like a dog ready to bite. She flicks her wrist— a motion so quick Tooru almost misses it— and points the tips of her fingers at the boy standing in front of her. A layer of ice, thick and translucent, covers him. He's frozen. 

There are gasps and murmurs in the crowd, and a boy with silver hair runs up the steps to them but the Queen holds her arm out. She looks at second boy and says something to him, but he's not looking at her. She turns on her heel and stalks her way back into the castle, the rest of the crowd following at her heels. 

Tooru eventually makes his way towards the castle. Kyoutani is still frozen on the steps and as Tooru gets closer he can hear the other boy swearing repeatedly to himself as he rubs his face raw with the back of his sleeve.He doesn't seem to notice Tooru's even arrived until Tooru is right behind him and he asks, "Was it my fault?" 

The boy jumps, turns around to look at him. His cheeks and nose are red from the cold and his eyes are rimmed red and bloodshot. 

"Who are you?" he asks Tooru, cautiously. "How did you get here?" 

"I —" Tooru starts to tell him who he is before thinking better of it. He ignores the first question entirely and to the second question he says, "I got lost in the woods." 

"Liar," the boy says. 

Tooru can't back down, not now. Not when he's so close to Iwa-chan. 

"Anyway, what happened to him isn't your fault unless—"The boy's words stop in their tracks as his eyes widen. "Oh. Well, shit." He lets out a high-pitched strained laugh. "Do not tell me that the reason for Kentarou getting frozen alive just now just showed up on a silver platter to offer himself over? Because, if so, heads will roll." 

Tooru isn't sure what to say. _I didn't ask him to help me_ sounds childish and remorseless. If Tooru had known someone would be frozen alive with magic for helping him out, he wouldn't have accepted the help in the first place. But this stranger doesn't know that, and Tooru doesn't have the time to mull over the stranger's thoughts about him. 

Tooru's afraid to ask but he needs to know. "Is he—"

"He's alive,"the other boy says, "though death would probably be more pleasant than what she's putting him through with that spell." 

"What do you mean?"

The boy sighs, "You don't want to know." 

There's a moment of silence where Tooru and the strange boy look at each other until, finally, the shorter man introduces himself.

"Yahaba Shigeru." The boy points to himself, awkwardly. 

Tooru wonders momentarily if this is all a trick before proffering his own hand and saying, "Oikawa Tooru." 

The boy shakes his hand and says, "Huh." 

"Huh what?" 

Yahaba shrugs, "You're just— everyone in the castle is talking about you, saying you're some kind of farm boy, or something. I didn't expect you to be…" He cuts off his own sentence before finishing, watching Tooru silently again.Tooru has been looked at like this much too often since Iwa-chan got taken away by this Troll Queen, and that in itself is enough to make Tooru angry. 

"What?" Tooru asks. 

"There's a ball in a few nights. It's being thrown in honor of Her Highness and her husband-to-be."

Tooru narrows his eyes. "Why are you telling me that?" 

"I want to help." 

"Why are you helping me?" 

"The same reason he did." Yahaba looks pointedly at Kyoutani. "Now, come on, we'll be no good for either of them if we stay out here in the cold." 

He leads Tooru right through the front doors of the castle. Just stepping through the threshold is enough to raise Tooru's heart-rate even higher than it had been flying with the winds. The ceiling is arched so high and sculpted with details too small for Tooru to make out clearly from each other from his place on the ground. He briefly wonders how it was constructed. Surely, no one is tall enough to reach that on their own?He wonders if the winds have experience in masonry. 

Yahaba has to pull on his wrist to grab his attention. Tooru quickly apologizes before following the boy. 

"I'm Her Highness' manservant," he says, poison on his tongue, "stick with me, okay?" 

Tooru trusts that he's being told the truth, but he knows he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't at least ask so he says, "You're not going to turn me in are you?" 

"Oh, yes, that seems like a bright idea. If I thought it would save Kentarou, she'd already know you were here, but I know Her Majesty better than that. Do you know how long she's kept me here as her daughter's pet?" 

Tooru shakes his head, though he thinks Yahaba wasn't looking for an answer. 

"Too long. At least as long as Iwaizumi had been looking for someone to break his curse. And then he found you and well, let me tell you, that was hell for me. Her Highness suddenly needed all of the stars on a silver platter. Granted, my magic has nothing to do with the stars and even if it did Her Majesty took that from me the second we met." 

"Magic?" 

"I'm a witch," Yahaba says, casually, and Tooru thinks that maybe not being some magical being is something special. 

"What does that mean?" 

"Well, it means different things for different people, but my magic has a lot to do with— y'know— plants and stuff? So it'd be pretty useless in this barren, frozen excuse for land even if she hadn't taken it." 

"Taken it?" Tooru asks. Just one month ago he wasn't aware magic existed. Now he's being told it can be taken away.

"Yes," Yahaba says, "It was a …. painful process." 

He obviously does not want to talk about it further so Tooru drops it letting Yahaba's words sit in the air between them. 

The shorter boy has led Tooru down a suffocating hallway, the walls are too close together for comfort, the air damp, and the lighting too dark. He's not sure where he's being taken, but instead of asking questions he focuses on watching where he puts his feet as the darkness envelops them. 

 *

At nighttime, Tooru makes sure the satchel from his horse is secured with him. Yahaba insists its safe in the manservants' chambers. No one else enters except for the manservant to the queen herself, some man named Watari. 

"What's in there anyway?" Yahaba asks. 

Tooru glances sidelong at the bag but instead of giving a straight answer he says, "Gifts. From friends." 

Yahaba scrunches his nose and draws his brow together, but doesn't say anything. 

*

The next morning, Yahaba escorts him to her chambers after making Tooru swear not to tell her who showed him here with a mumbled, "Not that she'd be able to understand anyway, honestly."

Tooru hesitates, fingers tightening around the beige satchel before knocking on the door.

Her Highness, the three-quarters troll princess, opens it. She stands there for a moment, looking at him dumbly before speaking and saying what sounds like "Who?"in a voice that sounds like steel wool against an iron pot. She has skinny, sharp, teeth separated far enough apart from each other to expose her gum-line. Her white hair is knotted, chunks missing from her scalp and her skin is gray, ashy, and rough. 

"My name is Oikawa Tooru,"Tooru says, "and I've come with this."

He reaches into the satchel and pulls out the golden apple, holding it at the princess' eye level. Her eyes lack irises and the whites lack any sort of veins, but he notices as they widen, interest and desire dancing in them as they reflect the golden apple in his palm. 

Spidery fingers reach to grab for it but Tooru's reflexes are fast enough to pull it away from her grasp. She starts saying something in a harsh, ugly language that Tooru can't understand. 

"I have a condition."

His words stop her and she leans back slightly, apprehensively, trying to read him. She's nearly as tall as Tooru, probably even taller than Iwa-chan who had to lean upwards to kiss Tooru in the dark, walk-in closet, all those nights ago. He feels nauseous at the thought of this thing — girl? monster? beast? —  allowed to kiss and touch and hold Iwa-chan in the ways that he could have had if only he'd been good enough to break the curse. 

"I'll give this to you," he says, gesturing with the hand that holds the golden apple. "If you let me see Hajime." 

It takes the troll a minute, eyes sliding between the golden apple and his face. He wonders if trolls are as dumb as the books he's read claimed, before she says, "Hajime?" 

Tooru only stares at her in response, keeping the apple visible but tight in his own hand. 

"You can see him." Her voice grates against his ears. "Tonight. After dark. Come here." 

He holds the apple out for her to take. 

*

When Tooru returns to the front of Her Highness' chambers, after the sunlight has diminished to nothing, he meets a short young man with a buzzed haircut.He glances around looking for any sign of Yahaba. 

Instead of starting to introduce himself, Tooru says, "I'm ah—" 

"I know you're allowed to be here," the shorter male says, rolling his eyes. "Do I look new to this job?" 

"Uh—" 

"Don't answer that.I'm Her Majesty's personal servant, Watari Shinji.I'll show you to Iwaizumi-san's chambers. Yahaba would show you himself, but he's— occupied."He grimaces as he says it and Tooru can't help but feel bad for the princess' manservant at the thought, even though his thoughts can't seem to provide him what the specifics of Watari's statement could possibly mean. 

"I could bore you with the details of the architectural history of the castle," Watari says, "I never really get to use all that stuff she made me memorize. I don't think you'd fully appreciate it though, what with your situation." 

Watari rambles on about the architecture of the castle, anyway.Tooru tunes most of it out as they walk down the wide corridor until they reach a row of stained-glass windows. In the images, there's a woman, tall with long, dark hair and a golden crown on her head. She stands with her palms facing outwards, towards Tooru and Watari. In the second image, the woman appears again beside a man with severe eyebrows. He's wearing a bear's pelt. 

"The Queen had these commissioned from an artist that the Northern Wind brought." 

"The Queen?" Tooru asks, eyebrows drawing together.

"Not Her Majesty. The Queen before." Watari glances sideways at him. "You didn't think that Her Majesty was always in power, did you?" 

Tooru thinks that that's obvious, but he hadn't really thought of the possibility that there was something before the Troll Queen.He hadn't really thought about the harsh winter landscape holding its own history, its own secrets.Tooru wonders what happened to the Queen in the glass and the man with the bear's pelt. 

He turns to look at Watari but before he can form the question the other male says, "The walls have ears." 

They make a sharp turn and continue walking the new corridor, finally stopping near the middle in front of two large doors. 

"Guests' chambers," Watari explains, "this is where he's staying." 

"Do I—" 

"You can just go inside," Watari says. 

*

The guests' chambers are expansive. Tooru isn't sure what he expected. He doesn't think he's ever seen a room so large behind those first doors. There are a few sitting chairs, a fireplace that is currently unlit, and bookshelves lining the walls.There's another door, a smaller one, that leads further. He can feel his heart racing, his pulse in his fingers tips, his palms sweating, as he steps forward to push it open. When it swings into a second room, Tooru can feel his jaw drop. 

The walls are nearly as high as the ones from the entranceway to the castle, and an ornate rug is draped over the center of the floor.A large tapestry hangs from either wall. The canopied bed in the center of the room is twice the size of the one at the not-palace, the blanket a deep red. He steps further into the room, eyes scanning for any sign of Iwa-chan. When he can finally see around the foot of the bed, he spots him. 

"Iwa-chan," he says. 

The other doesn't stir. 

Tooru continues to try saying his name. Nothing works.He tries to shake the man awake, but he stays asleep even as Tooru pulls his limp torso upright. 

Tooru lets Iwa-chan back down. He hopes he hasn't hurt him in his desperate attempts to wake him up. There's a hot prick at the corners of his eyes as he swears to himself. This was not the reunion he had envisioned or hoped for.Iwa-chan looks peaceful, his breathing even. Tooru tries to take comfort in that much, at least. 

"What do I do?" he asks, fingers carding through short, dark hair. 

*

The next morning he gives Her Highness the golden comb. 

"Only if you let me see him again," he says and she doesn't even debate it this time around, just nods and watches the comb as Tooru hands it over. 

*

He doesn't know why he expected tonight to be different from last night, but he did.

"You were right," he says to the sleeping Iwaizumi. "I'm an idiot."

He doesn't try nearly as hard to wake Iwa-chan up tonight, instead just sits on the edge of the bed, atop the blankets the color of blood and rose petals. He sighs and traces Iwaizumi's fingers with the tips of his own.Tooru's hands are rough and calloused; even though there is no longer dirt underneath his nails and caked into his hands, he is still of the soil. He is still just a farmer's son. Perhaps he's only made things worse by showing up at the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. 

"Why can't you wake up?" he asks, cupping Iwa-chan's face in his palm. "What has she done to you?" 

Of course, there is no answer.

*

He only has the spinning wheel left.When he brings it to Her Highness the next day, Yahaba is standing by the door to her chambers, silver hair reflecting the sunlight coming through the arched, iron-lined, windows. 

"Again?" He asks Tooru, "you're going to run out of golden things to distract her with sooner or later."

Tooru lets out a strangled breath. "It's not my fault, okay? Both nights he's been asleep. And I don't mean taking a nap asleep, I mean impossible to wake up asleep." 

"Impossible to wake up?" Yahaba asks. 

Tooru nods. 

Yahaba hums then says, "I'll tell Her Highness she has a visitor and then I'll need to go… find Watari."

He disappears into her chambers, and a few moments later the doors open once more to reveal the Troll Princess.Tooru still isn't used to being this close to her, to seeing how truly ugly a troll is in person. _Three-quarters troll_ , his mind corrects him sounding oddly like a certain wind with pink hair.He grits his teeth and clutches the bag that now holds only a golden spinning wheel, apple and comb since spent. 

If Iwa-chan is asleep once again tonight, Tooru isn't sure what.

The Troll Princess stares at him as he reaches into the satchel and pulls out the golden spinning wheel. 

"Now this time," he says, "is the last time. Do you understand?" 

She blinks at him. 

"Do you understand?" he asks again, this time through gritted teeth, with narrowed eyes. 

The Troll Princess lunges, and Tooru dodges away from her, instincts working faster than he thought possible, still holding the spinning wheel in one hand.

"Do you want it or not?" he asks. 

"Yes," she says. Her voice is as grating as Tooru remembers. 

"And I can see him tonight?" 

She nods. 

He hands her the golden item.

*

At night, while the rest of the castle sleeps, Tooru makes his way once again to where they are keeping Hajime— to the guest chambers of the palace. It's so dark, with only light from the candle in his hand to guide him, and twice he worries he's taken a wrong turn and gotten himself lost.Then he sees the stained-glass windows. He tries carefully to remember the way that Watari brought him that first time, that first day until he comes upon the doors to the guest chambers. 

He pushes open the heavy, wooden, door and it makes an awful creaking sound, louder than he remembers, far more ominous with the night so dead around him. 

In the first room of Iwa-chan's chambers, Tooru notices light.He notices light before he notices its source: a crack in the door to the bedchamber. Pushing open the second door, Tooru's eyes have to adjust to the light of the room. He blows out the candle. 

There, in the middle of the room, is—

"Iwa-chan?" 

They're embracing before Tooru can even process that he's moved forward into the room.As he breathes in his scent he smells a bear, the bear, never really a bear, always him, always Iwa-chan, always Hajime.When their lips touch, it's either a fraction of a second or an eternity and then Iwa-chan is pulling away, looking at Tooru with green eyes. _Green, green, green._

His hands don't move from Tooru's shoulders when he says, "How did you get here?" 

Tooru begins to open his mouth but before any sound comes out, Hajime interrupts. 

"Actually, don't answer that. How long have you been here?" 

"A few days," Tooru says. 

Hajime says something under his breath and then louder, "Watari told me today not to drink the nighttime tea. He said it was a sleeping potion, and that there was someone who needed to see me." 

There's a lull in the conversation as Tooru tries to find words, but Iwa-chan beats him to it once more. 

"Does she know you're here?" 

"I don't know." 

"You don't know?" 

"I bribed her daughter into— into letting me see you."

"Bribed?" 

Tooru twists his lips to one side then says, "Trolls like pretty things." 

Iwa-chan's face lights up into a smile and he lets out a breath like a laugh before pressing his face into Tooru's shoulder and pulling him into an embrace. He says,"I thought I'd never see you again." 

"You left," Tooru says, "that night. You left—" 

"I—" 

"—and it was my fault." 

Hajime's breath tickles the skin between his neck and his shoulder as Tooru's fingers curl into the light fabric that the other man is wearing.He pulls back slightly and brings his hand to Tooru's cheek as he says, "It wasn't your fault." 

"But—" 

"No," he says again, "it wasn't your fault." 

Tooru presses his lips together. His eyes avoid Iwa-chan's when he says, "I'm sorry I didn't trust you." 

"You're right,a mysterious talking bear in an otherwise isolated mansion who is keeping secrets from you should definitely, always be trusted." 

"But you—" 

"You didn't know what was going on. Of course I don't blame you. If I could have told you from the beginning…" Hajime trails off. 

"What do we do now?" Tooru asks. 

Hajime moves to sit at the edge of the bed and Tooru follows.He holds the unlit candle, the wax re-solidified, in both hands looking at it as he thinks of where to go from here. He had assumed that Hajime would have a plan to get them out once he showed up at the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. 

"Trolls like pretty things," he says, again. He twirls the candle between his fingers of one hand, watching it. "And they're not very smart." He glances up at Hajime and says, "But we are."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Do you think that things that make trolls what they are, affect Her Majesty and Her Highness?" 

Iwa-chan just gives him a look. 

He keeps going, "In the library of the not-palace, there was a book about trolls." He pauses, then says, "Actually there were a lot of books about trolls. But I only read a few. And I remember… well. They like pretty things and they're not very smart." Tooru presses his lips into a line, draws his brow together, thinking. He looks back at his hands, holding the candle."And they can't wash tallow off cloth." 

*

Yahaba's clothes are too small on him, constricting the base of his throat and his wrists, but he doesn't have any better options so he's stuck like this: pants too short, shoes too tight.Still, he passes as a servant unless someone looks too closely at him. He's grateful that Yahaba had spare clothes. Apparently, most servants only have one set of formal dress. 

"I'm a special case," Yahaba says when he explains it to Tooru and the words sound hateful on his tongue. 

The ballroom is as damp and dark as every other part of the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. The ceiling is high and arched; the only lighting is from flames of sconces, projecting dancing shadows against stone walls as the tinny sound of a string instrument echoes throughout the ballroom. Tooru swallows, fighting the urge to clamp his fingers around Yahaba's wrist to not get separated in the chaos. The crowd of people— some more trollish than others— is far more overwhelming than the endless landscape of trees and snow ever was. 

Luckily, as a "servant," all he has to do is stand on the sidelines unless someone needs something from them like more of the acrid-smelling alcohol in the metal mugs in some of their hands. The food doesn't look very appetizing either; Tooru isn't entirely sure what it is and he's afraid to ask. He eyes Yahaba, trying to imitate and emulate, trying to make himself look as little out of place as possible. 

The guest of honor, of course, will have a big entrance. Tooru's eyes keep flicking towards the door as he tugs on the collar of Yahaba's tunic. Iwa-chan should arrive soon, but each moment that passes without his appearance makes Tooru's stomach churn. What if something happened? What if he's being executed or frozen?Tooru tries to not let his thoughts spiral and he's thankful for the distraction when Yahaba pushes him, alcohol in hand, towards a guest that's trying to wave them over. 

As he's pouring the awful smelling poison into the metal cup, the high doors to the second-floor balcony of the ballroom crash open and the room falls silent. 

The shrill, cutting voice of Her Majesty rings out, echoing against the stone walls, as she proclaims, "We welcome our guest of honor, betrothed of the heir to the throne, Iwaizumi Hajime." 

Tooru tugs at the too-short sleeves of the tunic that stop above his wrists as Iwa-chan stands on the balcony of the ballroom, in an elaborate white and icy blue outfit that clashes with his complexion. Even with the poor contrast of the ensemble to his skin, even with the poor lighting of the single chandelier casting shadows in the castle, Tooru's heart lurches and his breath catches in his throat at the sight of the other man. 

He's beautiful, Tooru thinks.Beautiful enough to be a king, even. 

"I have an unusual request." Iwaizumi's voice rings out through the ballroom. When the queen looks at him, Tooru wonders how Hajime can stand to meet her gaze, even as he stands below and can't make out her features or the depth of the glare she must be giving him. "That is," Hajime says, "if Her Majesty and Her Highness can complete it." 

The Troll Queen lets out a sharp "Ha," and looks back to her guests in the crowd of the floor of the ballroom.Despite the chill, Tooru feels himself begin to sweat. 

"You demand something from us? What is it?" 

Hajime pulls his hand out from behind his back, a white cloth flowing behind it. He holds it in front of himself, arm stretched outwards.

"I'd like Her Highness to clean my pillowcase." 

The queen sneers. "That is a task for servants." 

"I'll only marry someone who can do it," Hajime says, evenly.Tooru wonders how he stops his voice from sounding too harsh, too demanding, too angry.

Her Majesty makes a strangled noise before saying something in the ear-scratching language she and her daughter speak. The crowd is still so silent that if Tooru didn't know better he'd believe the room is nearly empty; that he is the sole witness to the exchange between the three persons on the balcony. 

The princess— who is taller than Hajime after all— speaks first. "I will do it." 

He knows better. He knows better than to believe she can actually complete the task that Hajime has set her up for, but she's agreed to do it anyway, and Tooru feels his stomach flip with anticipation. They've already talked about this, Tooru knows exactly what's supposed to happen, exactly how it's all supposed to pan out. He forces his fingers to his sides, actively not letting his fingers play with the frays at the edges of the servants' attire. 

Watari arrives moments later with a bucket of some liquid spilling out of it and clumps of suds sliding down the rusted metallic sides.The princess hesitates, Tooru isn't quite sure what she says, but then Watari leaves and returns moments later with a stool. The princess takes a seat.As soon as Hajime hands her the pillowcase, Tooru looks to Yahaba who leads him towards a servants' stairwell.

"Just follow the stairs until you see Watari," Yahaba whispers, shutting the door between them. 

It takes his eyes a moment to adjust before he's able to make his way up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, on the inside of a slightly cracked door, stands Watari who looks at Tooru as though he's trying to decide whether or not this is the right choice. Tooru tries not to think about what happened to Kyoutani Kentarou for helping the farm boy.Tooru watches through the crack in the door as the princess wrings out the soaked fabric with her hands, and then shakes it out to see that the large spot of wax has not disappeared.She blinks once and then a second time, jaw hanging open dumbly, and tries to scrub the spot again, only for the same thing to happen. 

There's a sharp, exasperated huff before the queen pushes her daughter out of the way. Her fingers grip the fabric, dunking it into the soapy water herself.When even Her Majesty, the Queen, cannot remove the stain, she clutches the soaked pillowcase in a death grip and says, "No one could get this out. That water is too cold." 

Tooru recognizes his cue, his nerves spiking, heart racing, fingers tingling, thoughts halting. He's distantly aware of a shrill voice speaking, and it takes a physical push from Watari for him to step out onto the balcony. 

"I can," he says, interrupting the queen in the middle of her tirade. "I can wash it." 

There's a rush of movement from the queen as she moves towards him so quickly that she might be flying. As soon as Tooru's reflexes kick in she stops, mid-movement, nearly statue-like. Her eyes slowly slide to the side as the rest of her body stays motionless, arm stretched towards Tooru, fingers inches away from his neck.

"Let him," Hajime says.

His forearm is raised above his bicep, hand in a fist.When he releases his fingers, the queen nearly falls into herself. She tosses the pillowcase gingerly at Tooru. 

"Try," she says, nearly spitting the word at him. "As if we can't do anything a human can." 

The dripping pillowcase in one hand, Tooru makes his way over to the soapy water. The stool that the princess had been sitting on is lying against the ground, knocked over at some point during the chaos that Hajime's demands have caused for Her Majesty.She's very obviously trying to save face, standing in her terrifyingly regal manner, taller than Tooru himself, head tilted backward as her eyes glue to him. 

He dunks the fabric into the water, fingers flinching at the chill of it before he relaxes them into it. He works the fabric between his fingertips gently at first. When the tallow doesn't immediately begin to come out, Tooru panics, thinks that maybe this whole thing was a mistake. He presses his fingers in more deliberately, chunks of it beginning to pull away from the fibers. It takes a few moments, his focus completely in front of him and avoiding thoughts about the queen or the princess or the crowd or Hajime; all he can think about is the tallow stain on the pillowcase. 

As he finally lifts the pillowcase, liquid streaming from it, out of the water, Tooru wonders if somewhere below him Yahaba is holding his breath. The pillowcase is weighed down by the water, and it resists him slightly as he pulls it apart to its full length. 

"Impossible," the queen says.

A hand clasps his shoulder and Tooru startles before glancing up to see Hajime, who takes the pillowcase and holds it up for the crowd to see. 

Tooru's pushed backward onto his elbows as the queen rushes towards Hajime. 

"You. You tricked us." 

"You agreed to my request," Hajime says, jaw tensed in a way that tells Tooru there's more he isn't saying. 

"You tricked us."The queen's voice rises in pitch and in volume. 

The princess is nearly snarling, not bothering to speak. Tooru wonders if her mother ever lets her speak. The queen continues to shriek at Hajime, but her words are lost to Tooru who watches as her entire body seems to expand in front of him. He can't tear his eyes away from the sight. The queen herself doesn't seem to notice, she simply continues to scream. She lifts a hand turning wildly towards Tooru who scrambles backward pushing his feet and elbows on the ground. Something stops her from killing him, she glances at her own hand, eyes widening. 

And then the queen is a countless number of small pieces floating through the air. Tooru gets sprayed with something black, sticky, and putrid. 

He stares at the space where the queen stood. The princess is nowhere to be seen either.Tooru glances at Hajime, covered in the black sludge, and part of him wants to ask what's just happened but he already thinks he knows the answer. Instead, when their eyes meet, Tooru just swipes a palm across his own mouth. 

A sound lifts up to them from the crowd. 

They're cheering, Tooru realizes. 

"We did it," he says as he clasps his fingers around Iwaizumi's hand, letting the other pull him up to his feet. 

"No," Hajime says, " _you_ did it."

*

The next morning, Tooru expects the outside to be green grass, blue skies, blooming flowers. When he peers through a window from the end of the corridor down from the ballroom he sees nothing but snow, leafless trees, and snowy mountains on the horizon. 

"Her curses will undo themselves now that she's dead," Watari tells him as Iwaizumi is busy speaking with freed prisoners from the dungeons over hot stew that's been brought upstairs from the kitchens.Everyone is eating and talking about what they'll do now that their curses are being lifted. 

"Undo themselves?" Tooru asks because he knows nothing about curses or magic except to trust bears that can talk and not to trust magic candles and matchbooks with spells written on them. 

Watari nods. "Over time. The entire valley has been cursed for nearly a decade, so it'll take at least a decade to undo." 

Tooru hums then asks, "Where's Yahaba?" 

"Huh, I…" Watari trails off, craning his neck to look around the room. "I don't know. I haven't seen him since—" 

"The ballroom." 

The two of them watch each other for a moment, and then at the same time start speaking.

"We should—" 

"I think I'll—" 

"look for him." They finish together.

*

Outside of the castle, they see him on the stairs, silver hair rippling with the wind and reflecting the sun. He's standing next to a frozen sculpture of a man, encased in ice, with darkly lined eyes, teeth bared, eyebrows drawn together. Yahaba's lips are moving so he must be saying something, talking to Kyoutani, but the howling of the wind blocks his voice from reaching Tooru and Watari. 

It's far below freezing cold out. Tooru knows that Watari said it will be awhile before spring returns to these parts, but he wishes that it would hurry up and get warmer. He wonders if now that this is all over he'll ever not feel a chill in his bones again.He's been cold for so long.

"He'll come back inside when he's ready," Watari says. 

*

Most of the day is a blur. 

Around noon-time— the sun at its peak behind the clouds that hang over the sky— a crowd gathers in the foyer of the castle. The ground shakes underneath their feet and the windows rattle in their frames as the walls vibrate until they stop and two men— one with pink hair and one with thick eyebrows— stand among the crowd. 

"The rightful king," the Northern Wind shouts, voice anything but serious."You've returned to us!"

"I'm not a king," Hajime says. 

"Well, besides being the son of the proper queen of this valley… technically, you are," the Southern Wind says. He clears his throat and pretends to be reading from a scroll, holding his hands into light fists, vertically parallel from each other. "Whosoever slays the ruling monarch shall become the ruling monarch. So has it been, and so it shall ever be." 

"Still not the king," Hajime says. 

"But she died because of you," the Northern Wind says. 

Hajime shakes his head and looks to Tooru. "She died because of him." 

The winds balk as they turn their heads to look at him. He feels small under their gaze, but he straightens his back and lifts his chin. He's at least half-sure the winds were joking around to bother Iwa-chan, but he's still unsure of what's about to happen.

"Really?" the Southern Wind asks him. "You killed her?" 

Tooru's eyebrows draw together."She kind of just… exploded." 

"Exploded?" 

"Well," he says, "she was angry because I could wash the tallow off the pillowcase." 

"The pillowcase?" Matsukawa asks, looking to the Hanamaki. The two winds look at each other for a moment before looking back at Tooru and then at Hajime. 

Hajime explains the plan that Tooru had come up with that night in the guests' chambers. When he's done, the winds look at Tooru once more. The pink-haired wind's head tilts to one side. 

He says, simply, "So then, you're the new king." 

"There's never been a human in charge of this castle,"the other wind says, "it would be interesting." 

Tooru's mind halts at the words. He thinks: Oikawa Tooru, son of a farmer. He thinks: Oikawa Tooru, of the soil. He thinks: Oikawa Tooru, king of east of the sun and west of the moon. 

Tooru looks to Hajime and opens his mouth but before he can speak Hajime says, "It's your decision. No-one's forcing you to do this." 

Tooru thinks of his mother, who he still hasn't fully forgiven for the candle despite her good intentions. He thinks of his father, his sister, his brother-in-law, his nephew. He thinks of the farmhouse and the river behind it. He thinks of the abandoned farmhouse up-current, a place of wraiths and ghouls. 

"You were her son," he says, though he isn't sure who she even is, really."Why were you—" 

Iwa-chan shakes his head, "It doesn't matter— not right now, anyway. You have enough to think about." 

The winds look between themselves again, communicating solely with their eyes, before the turn to look back at the two other men. 

"Well, then. We'll be back eventually." 

"Good luck with your decision." 

They disappear as a gust of air swoops out of the foyer.

*

As the sun begins to dip behind the mountains in the distance, Tooru wanders back to the entrance hall and pulls open one of the heavy doors.On the the steps— talking to a boy with silver hair and light in his eyes like Tooru has never seen— is a very angry, mostly-thawed young man. He glares at Tooru when he notices him. Tooru glances down and notices his shins to his feet on the ground are still frozen.

"So she froze me for not turning you in and you showed up anyway? Figures." 

"That's no way to talk to the King," Yahaba chastises. 

Kyoutani's chin drops and his mouth opens as his eyes narrow slightly, finding Tooru again."You? The King?" 

"Not exactly… I haven't—" 

Kyoutani swears, interrupting Tooru. "She freezes me for what, less than a week? And suddenly, we have a new king." 

"Shouldn't you be more worried about dying of something now that you're exposed to the air?" Tooru asks.

Kyoutani shakes his head."No. Because I'm not weak like some human." 

"Kentarou, please," Yahaba says, cutting into the conversation. "Seriously, he's the King now and you could get in serious trouble for being disrespectful." 

"What, is a human going to freeze me and watch me struggle to breathe?" 

Yahaba looks to Tooru, eyes apologetic. 

"I don't—" he starts, unsure of how to handle this development. "I'm not really— I mean I haven't technically accepted the title of king. But even if I did I wouldn't want to punish someone who saved my life." 

"What a selfless hero that makes you," someone says behind him. 

Tooru jumps and glances behind him to see Hajime standing in the doorway. 

"Mean, Iwa-chan," Tooru says, "you know I didn't mean it like that." 

"You literally just said you didn't want to punish someone who saved your life; you implied you'd punish him if he hadn't." 

Tooru pouts. 

Hajime laughs. 

Kyoutani— huffing angry breath out from his mouth, air clouding as he exales— continues to stand with his arms crossed, impatiently waiting for the bottom halves of his legs to de-ice. Yahaba presses his fingers to the back of Kyoutani's hands, which makes it slightly annoying when Hajime grabs Tooru's own hand in his and Kyoutani, loud enough for them to hear, says, "Gross." 

*

In what are still the guests' chambers by name, light slips through a crack in the drawn, heavy curtains and hits Tooru's face. When his eyes open too quickly to adjust he squints and then rolls onto his side trying not to disturb Hajime whose limbs are entwined with his own. 

Despite his best efforts, Hajime wakes up. He squeezes his eyes shut making his eyelids crinkle and mumbles something incoherent into the blanket; Tooru doesn't manage to catch a single word of it.

"What?" he whispers. 

Hajime's eyes blink twice before opening. Green, green, green.Tooru could get used to this. 

"Oh," Hajime says, smile playing at his lips. 

The arm that's lazily hanging over Tooru's side, half-tangled in the sheets, pulls back as Hajime adjusts the way he's laying before finding its way back to skin. Then Hajime kisses him, lips soft and pliant and slow in their freshly woken state. 

When they pull apart, finally and too soon, Hajime asks, "Have you decided?" 

Tooru lets out a breath. 

He says, "No." There's a silence. "I haven't decided, I mean." 

Hajime lets out a sigh and a _hmm_ simultaneously, eyelids fluttering shut. 

"I want to see my family, I think," Tooru says. "Before I decide." 

Green eyes open again, dark, harsh eyebrows pulling together above them. Tooru's heart-rate quickens, wondering if Hajime will say that he can't or that he shouldn't see his family.

"Okay," Hajime says, corners of his lips turning downward slightly. 

"Only if you come with me, though," Tooru adds. 

Hajime rolls his eyes but he lets out an exhale through his nose, eyes falling shut again as he fails to fight off sleep.

"Okay," Hajime says. 

As the once bear— never really a bear, always him, always Iwa-chan, always Hajime— falls back to sleep, Tooru presses a kiss to his forehead. Being king of east of the sun and west of the moon won't be easy. But he thinks— as his fingers card through dark hair, making it stick together in odd angles that make him laugh to himself— it won't be so terrible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah feel free to message me on tumblr if you see anything weird bc i tried to catch my typos and grammar issues, but 13k is a lot to look through.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](https://keishn.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/keishn_).


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